What is accountability? Simply put, accountability is having a person agree to: "I understand my role; I know what I am supposed to deliver; I know the reward I will get for doing it and I agree that my survival on the job depends on these parameters".
Implied in that simple statement is a flow chain, consisting of a feedback loop with measurement, accompanied by a fair reward and punishment (lack of rewards) system.
Some key parameters that capture the essence of accountability include:
- A person must agree to it: Unless you have the person's full agreement to the system and the measures within it, you cannot have accountability. Therefore it has to be designed for each individual, with the person as an active, willing, contributing participant. They must see the benefit of it to themselves.
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A person must have control: A person can only be held responsible for things over which that person has control. Once the control lies in the hands of someone else, somewhere else, the ‘accountable' individual cannot be deemed to be truly responsible. Thus, avoid using ‘allocated' accounts.
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Measurement must capture the essence of it: Every job is infinitely complex, so its description and its measurement could be equally complex. Keep in mind two things:
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The measure must be about what the individual is supposed to deliver to the ‘customer', which, most times, is the employee's boss.
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Ideally keep it to one or two items to be measured that cover 80% of what the person is supposed to do. "What one or two items, if you deliver them consistently as expected, will make your boss deliriously happy?"
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Measurements must be gather-able and simple: It is one thing to agree to a measure, but it must come forward regularly without obstruction or difficulty. Also, it must be simple so that you know if you have it, your boss knows if you have it and your co-workers know too.
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There must be feedback: Once the measure comes, an ongoing indication of how much it exceeds or is short of expectations must be provided to the individual in an indisputable manner.
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The accountability should be expandable: Having established accountability for one person, you should be able to expand it to the group, to the department and to the company.
Accountability systems are achievable in any work domain - if there is the will to put them in place.
Author Credits
Bill Caswell, B. Eng., P. Eng., was founder of three high technology enterprises including SPS information technology part of a $1 billion conglomerate located in Ottawa, Toronto, Halifax, Seattle and Guadalajara Mexico. As a design engineer, Bill has inventions in the radar and process instrumentation domains and he helped launch 200 scientific rockets per year into the upper atmosphere under contract to NASA. He is the author of The Respect Revolution, a 12-book series written by a CEO for CEOs, a guide to getting companies to Excellence. Caswell Corporate Coaching Company (CCCC) guides management teams down the clear path to making self-designed improvements with an emphasis on Accountability.
http://www.caswellccc.com