Accountability

Part Three of the Foundation Thinking Series

Accountability is the acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, decisions, and policies including the administration, governance, and implementation within the scope of the role or employment position and encompassing the obligation to report, explain and be answerable for resulting consequences. If you are accountable for the performance of the team, then when things go right it's you who will receive the benefit, but when things go wrong it's you who will receive the blame. When you are accountable you own it, not the last guy.


How do we do this in our processes and organizations?

Since you are not just account for the here and now, you are also for future levels of performance. Has the team or organization just experienced good performance? This is an opportune time to ask what went well, why it went well, and how does the team capitalize on that reason and replicate across other possible opportunities.

There should be a similar response for when the team experiences not-so-good performance. As discussed before, one popular tool is the After-Action-Review (AAR). This is a method that can be completed in a short amount of time, usually less than an hour, compared to a 12 month Six Sigma project or a 6 week Kaizen event. The AAR asks four questions:

1. What happened?
2. What was supposed to happen?
3. Why did it happen?
4. What can we do in the future to keep it from happening again. 

Using this technique teaches teams to become Learning Organizations, as opposed to only groups of individuals working interdependently on the same product and using the "Hope for Change" to get good results.

So you have to ask yourself, do you want to be accountable for good performance, or bad performance?  Don't rely on luck, BELIEVE in your's and your team's skills and abilities.  Get out of the way and let them perform!

Organizational Characteristics

• Governance and prescribed roles & responsibilities
• Ethical climate
• Results focused approach

Individual Characteristics

• Without blame and disparaging comment 
• Responsible for team output