Get Crystal Clear About Who is In Charge

Account­abil­i­ty is a hot top­ic in a lot of com­pa­nies — and with many leaders.

Some­times it’s an issue because peo­ple aren’t account­able, and things get missed.

Some­times, peo­ple want to be account­able when oth­ers think they shouldn’t, and it becomes a ​‘stay off of my turf’ dynamic.

What­ev­er the rea­son, get­ting crys­tal clear on who is account­able saves a lot of grief.

Even for sim­ple things in your per­son­al life, like book­ing a fam­i­ly vaca­tion. You want to make sure you know who’s book­ing the flights, the hotel, the rental car and tick­ets to the show.

That’s usu­al­ly easy to fig­ure out, with a small group of peo­ple but, in busi­ness, when it comes to larg­er and cross-func­tion­al teams, there’s a tool that’s been around for a long time – a best prac­tice that helps you to get clear on project own­er­ship that also makes exe­cu­tion and eval­u­a­tion, at the end. much easier.

We also use it to debate deci­sions; and for rocks or goals in strate­gic planning.

“Some­one needs to own it. There’s a rea­son there’s only one steer­ing wheel in a car.”

The RACI mod­el helps you deter­mine who is:

• Respon­si­ble: The per­son who does the work
• Account­able: The deci­sion mak­er and the per­son who makes sure the work is done to the expect­ed level. .
• Consult­ed: Peo­ple whose opinions/​input are sought before the deci­sion is made or action tak­en. If you don’t con­sult the right peo­ple you may build a sys­tem that’s good in the­o­ry, but not in practice.
• Informed: Peo­ple who are kept up to date on progress/​completion of the task.

This may seem like overkill for some small orga­ni­za­tions but, as com­pa­nies grow and depart­ments get big­ger and work more inde­pen­dent­ly, being clear — and defin­ing and agree­ing up front who is doing what — saves time, mon­ey and confusion.

For exam­ple, you don’t want cus­tomer-fac­ing peo­ple find­ing out you’ve made changes to the invoic­ing sys­tem after a cus­tomer tells them.

And is IT account­able for the new CRM sys­tem or are the users?

And take new prod­uct devel­op­ment: peo­ple — sales, finance and every­one else — love to have input into mar­ket­ing. There can be fric­tion, or peo­ple want­i­ng to take con­trol too much – or not enough.

Being clear helps everyone.

The Chal­lenge

• What projects do you have right now that would ben­e­fit from RACI?

For more about RACI, lis­ten to this episode of The Growth Whis­per­ers podcast.