Do You Have the Right Elements to Hold Your Team Accountable?

“When you have clear, 90-day deliv­er­ables, report­ed on every quar­ter, a lot more progress is made — and all the ques­tions about account­abil­i­ty and align­ment start to fade away.”

It’s a fun­ny per­cep­tion peo­ple have that lead­er­ship is full of peo­ple who yell and are tough on their col­leagues in order to get things done. In real­i­ty, many excel­lent lead­ers are more car­ing and com­pas­sion­ate than cal­lous – and they are very good at hold­ing peo­ple accountable.

And then there are those who just aren’t nat­u­ral­ly good at it.

Over the years, we’ve found that although peo­ple want to hold oth­ers account­able, they’ve had some bad expe­ri­ences — usu­al­ly because they’re doing it based on opin­ions and feel­ings rather than facts and crys­tal-clear expectations.

This is also true of most of our frus­tra­tions with peo­ple in life. When there is mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion or a lack of aligned expec­ta­tions, both sides come away disappointed.

The Right Elements

The ulti­mate man­age­ment tool is to set peo­ple up to self-man­age, with only a light touch from leadership.

When a leader puts a lot of ener­gy into mak­ing some­one account­able — not fun for either side — it’s because there aren’t enough sys­tems for a clear under­stand­ing of expec­ta­tions and cur­rent performance.

Here are the right ele­ments you need:

1. Lead by exam­ple. While a cliché, if you don’t feel that you are ful­ly account­able or are not com­fort­able with being held account­able, odds are you’re going to be soft on the peo­ple around you – either because you don’t like ten­sion, or you feel you might vio­late your own integri­ty because you’re weak at it. When you hold your­self to a high­er stan­dard, it’ll be eas­i­er for you to do the same for others.
2. Clear Goals. Make sure you have three to five crys­tal-clear SMART goals for the com­pa­ny, for each exec­u­tive and for every team in your entire orga­ni­za­tion to deliv­er every quar­ter. (You can lis­ten to Episode 71 of The Growth Whis­per­ers to learn more about SMART goals).
3. Clear per­for­mance met­rics (KPIs). Make sure that each team and every indi­vid­ual has three to sev­en oper­a­tional num­bers which show how their part of the busi­ness is per­form­ing and if they are deliv­er­ing to expectation.
4. Con­duct. This is about behav­iour­al expec­ta­tions that are anchored in the core val­ues of the orga­ni­za­tion. How we show up as human beings, and how we con­duct our­selves in rela­tion­ships with peers, cus­tomer, and direct reports. Call out behav­ior that is incon­sis­tent with com­pa­ny val­ues and culture.
5. Trans­par­ent report­ing. No secrets. Be clear about the met­rics of every team and how they are work­ing towards their goals.
6. Car­rots and sticks. Prac­tice pos­i­tive rein­force­ment when an indi­vid­ual or a team per­forms well — whether it’s a thank you note, lunch with the CEO or a finan­cial reward. And acknowl­edge peo­ple who don’t achieve what’s expect­ed. When kids mis­be­have in school, they go to the principal’s office or stay late to redo a test. In busi­ness, this could be a meet­ing with the exec­u­tive, a writ­ten warn­ing, or per­for­mance improve­ment plan. And, if they con­sis­tent­ly can’t do it right, it may mean a demo­tion or being asked to leave the com­pa­ny. Just make sure it’s not pub­lic or bru­tal – and that they have the tools and resources to fix the problem.

These ele­ments allow peo­ple to man­age their own account­abil­i­ty because it’s so clear what is expected.

And if you have to inter­vene too much, the root cause is often not the per­son. Instead it’s that what is expect­ed of them isn’t clear.

The Chal­lenge

• How can you enhance the ele­ments of account­abil­i­ty you’re already doing?
• What new ele­ments can you add?

For more on this top­ic, lis­ten to Episode 72 of The Growth Whis­per­ers podcast.

Lawrence & Co’s work focus­es on sus­tain­able and enhanced growth for you and your busi­ness. Our diverse and expe­ri­enced group of advi­sors can help your lead­ers and exec­u­tive teams stay com­pet­i­tive through the use of var­i­ous learn­ing tools includ­ing work­shops, webi­na­rs, exec­u­tive retreats, or one-to-one coaching.

We help high-achiev­ing lead­ers to have it all – a great busi­ness and a reward­ing life. Con­tact us for sim­ple and impact­ful advice. No BS. No fluff.