I encounter this complaint from the managers in my MBA classes as well as those I interact with in the “real world”. They insist that a lack of accountability is the primary source of the problems they have in their organizations.  Laurie (my management consultant wife) encounters it with her clients, some of whom maintain that the reasons for inefficiency and poor communication is because people are not being accountable.

It’s as if “accountability” has become the new mantra of managers or the new solution for whatever problems leaders might be having getting things accomplished.  “If people were more accountable, we would be much better off,” they say.

Unfortunately, the call for “more accountability” is often one sided, focusing on the lack of accountability in others, and fails to recognize that there are two sides to accountability: the “holder” side and the “producer” side.  The two sides are located in different places and both are necessary to have any accountability actually perform.

Holder Accountability is the responsibility of a person who wants something, asks for it, and “holds” that commitment until the result is produced. A person with Holder Accountability might be a manager who wants her team to handle customer service calls, or a supervisor who wants his crew to repair equipment. The manager or supervisor (or parent, or friend) requests what s/he wants and then checks back at the end of the day or week or month to see what portion of the request is completed. The manager holds people to account by asking the customer service team or the repair crew to account for their work, their performance, and their results.

When your boss gives you an assignment and then asks you questions regarding its status, she is demonstrating Holder Accountability, holding you to account for the assignment.  Similarly, if you tell a colleague you will do something for them by Friday and they ask you about it on Thursday or Friday (or the following Monday), they are holding you to account for what you said you would do.

The second side of accountability is Producer Accountability. It is the accountability of the person or group who will be producing the results or doing the work: the customer service phone team and the equipment repairmen who are doing their jobs are demonstrating Producer Accountability. They were assigned to do a job and they are doing it, and they will report on the status and outcomes as needed.

There is no “accountability” without both halves of the equation. If there is nobody making a clear request for something to be done and who cares enough about that request to follow through and see that it actually is performed, there is no Holder Accountability. If there is nobody who accepts the request to perform the work, there is no Producer Accountability. Getting “more accountability” in an organization requires accountability on both sides of the table: manager and staff, boss and worker, or any person who asks for something from another and the person(s) they ask.

Someone else can impose Holder Accountability on us, but only we can impose Producer Accountability on ourselves.  When my doctor gives me a diet to reduce my cholesterol, I don’t think about that as any kind of accountability – until I go back the next year for another blood test. She looks at the blood test results and she can tell whether I’ve kept my part of the bargain or not.  Producer Accountability is completely self-generated, and we have only ourselves to look to if it is missing. My doctor will hold me accountable by saying, “Your cholesterol has improved, but only a little bit. How much did you follow the diet?”

Authentic Producer Accountability says that we own the work we have to do – it is ours.  It’s like saying, “I will look to see what needs to be done to accomplish this, and I will do it. I will get the help and the resources needed, and if I can’t find them, I’ll get back to you and ask for your guidance in how to take the next steps.”

So, what is it that leaders are really calling for when they call for “more accountability” in their organizations? More often than not they want more Producer Accountability.  They want employees to show initiative in taking on work, to own their work, and to do what needs to be done without constant supervision and without excuses.

But here’s the catch: if a leaders does not provide a clear request with a visible outcome that permits a follow-up, they are not living up to their side by providing any Holder Accountability.  Furthermore, if a manager has no commitment to holding people to account, and following up with them regarding their performance, workers will eventually assume the managers doesn’t really cares how, when, or if the work gets done.

It is wishful thinking to expect people to generate a high level of Producer Accountability in the absence of Holder Accountability.  The key to building a culture and organization of “more accountability” starts by creating the conditions for authentic Holder Accountability.  In other words, if managers want more accountability, then they will want to learn how to assign work in a way that makes what people are accountable for clear and then hold them to account. Good Holder Accountability gives people a reason to develop Producer Accountability: with a great manager, I’ll maintain or improve my work performance even when I’m in a bad mood.

How can you improve your Holder Accountability?  Here are some ideas:

1.            Spell out the conditions and measures that must be met in order for the assignment to be considered successful.  People need to know what the job is, and you need to know how to tell if they did it. No fair saying, “Do a better job.” You’ve got to say how you – and they – will measure success.  People need to know the “what”, and if needed the “how”, they will be held to account for.

2.            Provide specific time lines and due dates for when you’ll be checking back with them. They need to know YOUR timeline for your Holder Accountability, and when they will be expected to give you a status report or a result.  They need to know the “when” they will need to account for.

3.            Follow through on a consistent and regular basis, such as weekly debrief meetings in which people have to report on the status of all their work and make projections about what they will accomplish in the following week. Holder Accountability is all about reliable follow-up on assignments and is where holding them to account actually happens.

As to building Producer Accountability, here are some tips:

1.            Be sure you assign work to people who have the ability to do the job.  When you give a work assignment to someone you know will fail, it will not build their Producer Accountability. It will build resentment, distrust, and cynicism. If you have people who can’t do the job, you may have a training problem but you don’t have an accountability problem.

2.            Be sure people have all the information and resources they need to succeed. You can’t expect people to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. You’ll build Producer Accountability by telling people that you want them to be specific about what resources they need, to assemble as much as they can themselves, and to come to you when they need help.

3.            Give people timelines, milestones, and deadlines. It will support them in good planning to meet your expectations.  No fair saying, “Do it as soon as possible.” Performance is a function of time, and if people don’t have deadlines, they can’t organize their resources to deliver what you want.

When you strengthen your own Holder Accountability, you also strengthen other people’s Producer Accountability.  If you want more accountability in your workplace, start building it!

Here is what Paul has to say about it:  “While I continually ask my boss for deadline and priority setting, I often receive non-committal responses or am blatantly ignored when I attempt to clarify his requests.  He has also taken to using the excuse that his boss “demands it now” and that is why he does it.”

Clearly there are times when bosses are under the gun to get something to happen immediately.  Emergencies do happen and unexpected opportunities arise with short response windows.  When these arise, bosses are completely justified in asking that things be done “now”.  But these should be rare occasions, not standard operating procedure.  The fact that bosses can demand something be done now doesn’t make it good leadership practice.  And passing the blame, as this boss does, only further undermines credibility, reduce other’s confidence, and creates victims who are not accountable.

Habitually asking for things “now” is inconsiderate, disruptive, and reduces the likelihood of getting them “now”.  It is inconsiderate because it denies people the opportunity to plan and schedule their work while increasing their levels of uncertainty and stress.  It is disruptive because these types of interruptions result in missed deadlines on other projects and assignments, lower productivity, and increase inefficiencies.  As a result, things that are wanted “now” can actually take longer to achieve than they would have if planned for in advance.

Habitually asking for things “now” contributes to a “fire fighting” culture where people become increasing resentful (resistant?), resigned, and disengaged.  You can almost hear the resentment and resignation in how Paul describes his response to when his boss demands “now”: “I just pull out my sheet, point to the deadlines, and say “We’ll keep working at it.”

Contrast this with what Paul says about his own use of deadlines:  “I have been highly successful in by cooperatively establishing timelines for projects.  Doing so has endeared me to my resources and I feel they are going the extra mile to meet the established deadlines.  I work at restraining the urges to push the “now” button so that when I do, I get a “now” response.”

There are times when, as Paul says, managers need to push the “now” button.  But it is possible to minimize its use.  One way to minimize its use is to plan. There is a popular saying that “Your failure to plan is not my emergency.”  Unfortunately, for people like Paul, the failure of a boss to plan does become their emergency.

Planning doesn’t have to be an elaborate process.  At a minimum it involves looking at the work that is due in the coming week(s) and making the appropriate requests in a timely manner.  One tool that can support managers in doing this planning is a weekly schedule in which they schedule not only meetings and appointments, but when work needs to be to them in order for them to meet their obligations.  Without some structure for reminding us of what is due and when, managers are left to their memories, which are not always reliable, and can result in suddenly remembering that something is needed “now”.

On the surface, habitually demanding things be done “now” might look like it works.  Deeper down, however, leaders and managers are contributing to the very things that undermine the productivity and performance they seek to achieve.  Leaders who are interested in building engaged, accountable, and reliable performers will reconsider this practice.

I recently talked to a manager – let’s call him Roy – whose company had completed a series of employee satisfaction surveys.  It turns out that although Roy’s unit scored higher than others on overall happiness, there were a few areas in which his unit was lower.  To find out why, the people who conducted the survey had a meeting with the employees in Roy’s unit in which they were asked to talk about the things they didn’t like.

“After that meeting, I am convinced people were more unhappy with work than they were before,” Roy told me.  “Why is that?” he wanted to know.

What Roy’s unit went through is what might be called “trauma sharing”, which is a form of understanding conversation in which people want other people to understand how bad things really are.  There is no purpose to the conversation other than to get the misery out.  In the process, people try to “one up” each other with how their problem or situation is so much worse than anyone else.  The result is a form of emotional contagion in which people become increasing dissatisfied and unhappy.

An alternative to “trauma sharing” is to have people talk about what they like at work and how they could get more of that.  In this case, people talk about the things that give them satisfaction and happiness.  The point here is not to outdo each other, but to share the things that you like about your work: the people, the assignments, the equipment, and humorous interchanges, anything that gives you satisfaction.  The result is a positive form of emotional contagion in which people become increasingly satisfied, animated, and happy.

People’s emotions and attitudes are a product of the conversations they are having.  If they are having conversations about things they find dissatisfying, they will become increasingly dissatisfied.  By the same token, if they are in conversations about things that are satisfying to them, they will be satisfied.  Want to increase your satisfaction at work?  Change what you talk about from what you don’t like to what you do and see what happens.

Of all the books Todd mentions, however, I am particularly looking forward to reading Switch: How To Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath.  Since I teach the MBA courses on managing change in the Fisher College, I am always looking for new and interesting perspectives on making change easier.

Sounds like it could be a good year for reading.

During our discussion, several people pointed out how often they are not told why something is being undertaken and how much it bothers them.  Laurie and I heard similar comments from the managers and supervisors at Rolls Royce in Ohio who were going through several organizational changes.  When we told them about the four different types of conversations, they pointed out that they were not told why the particular changes were being made.

What was particularly interesting with both the COSI and Rolls Royce groups was that they were not so much concerned with the WHY itself as the fact that they were not being told.  In other words, it wasn’t important to them what the reason for the changes were, or why it they were important as much as it was that they were not being told; they were given no explanations.  For the people at Rolls Royce, the fact that they were not being told was seen as disrespectful and distrusting.

People want a reason for why you want something, and if you don’t give one, they can become resentful and hold it against you.  Some people may argue with the reason, dislike the reason, or even think its stupid, but they want a reason.  There is a story about people waiting in line to use a copier when someone tries to cut into the line without giving a reason.  People already inline got upset and “threw” the person out of line.  However, when another person tried the same thing, and gave the reason that they were in a hurry to meet a deadline, they were allowed to cut.  Telling people why you want something or explaining why you are doing something helps people to make sense of what is happening.

If you want more effective working relationships with people, try telling them WHY something is important.

I was recently at a holiday dinner reception at the Fisher College of Business hosted by the Dean.  At my table were several other faculty members.  At some point, the conversation turned to a favorite complaint of faculty – “Why don’t students do what is needed to do well in class?”  Now, if you notice, this is a general complaint in that with a few minor substitutions, it can be applied to anyone, anywhere, at anytime.  Consider “Why don’t [fill in the person or group] do [fill in the blank] to [fill in the blank]?”

Examples:

• Why doesn’t Ed do the report according to the specifications so we can move the project forward?
• Why don’t the Democrats/Republicans put more effort into cooperation to get things done?
• Why doesn’t the faculty spend more time with students so that they will do better in class?

What each of these (any many other) complaints have in common is that someone is not doing something someone else thinks they should when and how they think it should be done.  With those at my dinner table, students were not behaving in what was considered by those at the table in a responsible way; they were not being personally accountable.

It was during this discussion that I realized something was really missing – common ground.  The faculty at the table were assuming that students saw the world much in the same way they did.  But they never tested the assumption.  They just held students accountable for not being personally accountable.

The term “common ground” has different meanings.  For many, it means a common or background understanding of something.  For example, if we both go to a professional football game, then we have a common background understanding of what such a game is like; we have a similar experience.  Or, if we both take a course on art appreciation, we have a background understanding in common. Accordingly this meaning, the way you increase common ground is by exposing people to the same or similar experiences and information.

In the case of performance and accountability, however, I don’t think this meaning of common ground is sufficient because it does not necessarily provide mutual knowledge.  Mutual knowledge is another view of common ground in which both parties know the same thing.  For example, if you like chocolate ice cream, and I know you like chocolate ice cream, and you know I know you like chocolate ice cream, and I know you know I know you like chocolate ice cream, we have mutual knowledge.  We both know you like chocolate ice cream and we both know that each other knows it.  We have that knowing in common.

There are two things that make common ground interesting to me.  One is that it seems to be necessary for good communication between parties.  The other is that it is apparently missing for most of us.  Creating common ground takes work – it takes dialogue and really getting to know people.  But rather than do that, we seem to assume that they know what we know (or they should) and then operate from there.  Or worse still, we dismiss their world as invalid.

I have just started my investigation into the role of common ground and how it impacts performance, but what I have learned so far indicates it could be a key ingredient in “misunderstandings” and “miscommunications”.

I recently had a conversation with a manager who was disturbed by her inability to meet the expectations of those “higher up” (her term).  They would give her assignments and then, when she would complete them, they would point out something that was missing they expected to be included. Has this ever happened to you? Although it is easy for this manager to blame the “higher ups” for not being clear, she shares some of the responsibility for not finding out what they wanted.

If you look at each of your current assignments, are you confident you are 100% clear about what is expected of you in every case?  Is everyone else involved in the assignment also 100% clear about what you expect of them?  Or are you assuming you’ll figure it out, or they already know?

Assumptions and expectations are “silent standards”. We take a big risk when we assume that everyone knows what to do. If creativity is desirable, it’s fine to give a general direction. But if there are specific creative requirements that matter, you’ll want to get them spelled out.

Take the time to spell things out. What should the final product look like? What are the components? When do they need to be ready? Are there other people who should be involved and if so, who?  Is there a particular method or process that should be used or avoided? What restrictions and specifications apply? Don’t take a chance: assume nothing is obvious.

Remember: everyone associated with an assignment has expectations and assumptions.  Some people expect you to ask for their advice, others want to be kept informed, and some only want to be involved in an emergency.  And, they expect you to operate according to these expectations even if you don’t know them!  Ask people to take time with you to spell out their expectations.  Yes, you have to ask.

Sometimes people are afraid to ask because it might make them look less competent or capable, or they don’t want to deal with an unpleasant reaction.  One way around this is to say something like “I want to be sure you get exactly what you want and in order to do that, I want to be sure I understand the assignment clearly.  I don’t want to complete it only to find out there is something missing that you wanted included.  Could we take a few more minutes to clarify some things?”

Getting clear creates a common ground in that both of you know what is expected.  This has the effect of turning an expectation into an agreement and gives you (and them) the opportunity to say whether you can or cannot do what they ask. If something new comes up later, you can always say, “I didn’t agree to that, but I’m willing to consider it.”  What you want to avoid is having to say, “I didn’t know you needed that,” or, “I thought this is what you wanted”.

Reduce your risk by taking time to unspoken expectations into clear agreements that everyone can see and understand.

In the absence of a deadline or due date, all you have is a ‘whenever’.  A ‘whenever’ is something that gets done… whenever they bug you enough for it, whenever you find time to work on it, whenever you feel guilty enough to do it, etc.  ‘Whenever’ is stressful, an ever-looming, unknown burden to be carried around.  ‘Whenever’s’, particularly from bosses, are fear generators – we worry about when it will come due, anxious it will be asked for before we have completed it, concerned about its impact on all the other work we have, and afraid of what will happen if we don’t get it done when they want it (even though we don’t know when that is).

Contrary to a ‘whenever’, a deadline is a tool for accountability and accomplishment.  Deadlines provide information that allows both the person giving it and the person receiving it to know how to plan and do their work.  Deadlines make both the person giving the assignment and the person getting it accountable for getting work done by a particular time, rather than whenever either feels like it should be done.  When we say this is “high priority”, we avoid our responsibility for doing the work necessary to determine by when it really needs to be done.

In some organizations, a “high priority” assignment means it is to be completed within a well known period of time, for example, 24 hours.  In those cases, giving someone a “high priority” assignment is tantamount to saying “Do X within 24 hours”.  But in organizations where “high priority” is not well defined, where managers use it indiscriminately, saying an assignment is “high priority” conveys no useful information for when it should be done, only dread and worry.

In the training session, managers from the one organization pointed out that managers are now saying things like “This is priority 1-A” in an attempt to distinguish their high priority assignment from all the other high priority assignments.  Who are they kidding?  All they are doing is adding confusion while undermining their own credibility and any chance of real accountability.

Do yourself and others a favor, make clean requests and give a due date.

If you go into any workplace, what you will see is people doing things.  They are talking to each other, walking from one place to another, working on their computers, sitting in meetings, etc.  In short, what you see is people and their behavior.  What you don’t see are such context factors as the hierarchy of authority (titles and reporting relationships), workflow, accountability, trust, personal relationships, goals and objectives, or most of the other things that happen “in between” people.  People and behavior are in the foreground, context factors are in the background.

Why does this matter?  Because it leads to what is called the “fundamental attribution error” in which observers overattribute behavior to the dispositional factors (e.g., attitudes, emotions, motivations, skills, traits) of people rather than to contextual factors.  I can see you and your behavior, but I can’t see all the context factors or how they are impacting you.  As a result, when you do something – more often when you don’t do something – I look to you and you alone for the explanation.  I assume it has something to do with your commitment, your attitude, your motivation, your competence, whether you care, etc.  I don’t look to me and our relationship, or to the myriad things you have to deal with, or any of the factors going on between you, me, and others.  In short, your behavior is a function of you and you alone.

The impact of making this “error” is that if I want you to behave in some different way, for example, being more accountable, then I will try to alter your disposition in some way.  I might send you to training, talk to you about the value of being accountable in an attempt to motivate you to be more accountable, or any number of other things to change your disposition.  What I won’t do, however, is consider other context explanations, such as our conversations, and whether your being accountable is a function of the requests I make and whether I consistently follow up on them.

In my MBA class on management, I assign the book “Leadership and Self Deception” (I strongly recommend it).  Its and easy and engaging book in which the “hero” of the story discovers he has been interacting with people based on erroneous attributions, how and why he made those attributions, and the impact the errors have had on his leadership.  What I find particularly interesting is that students don’t want to talk about how they make similar attribution errors and how to overcome them.  They want to talk about how then can stop their boss or the people around them from making the error!

That was the second part of my insight – the fundamental attribution error is extremely persistent.  Even in the face of evidence to the contrary, people will continue making the same attribution error.  In other words, telling people, even demonstrating to people, that they are making an error, an error that has negative real life consequences, they will persist in the error.

For years I have wondered why it was that even though countless of articles and experts have said it is not possible to motivate others, that motivation is an internal state, managers persisted in wanting to know “How can I motivate them?” I now see an answer – they believe behavior is a function of disposition, not context, and anything said to the contrary is ignored.  That belief makes my job harder and reduces the opportunity for breakthroughs in leader effectiveness.

The idea behind offering incentives is that they make a task or activity more attractive than it might otherwise be and thus increase the likelihood that people will do it.  But, as Dan Pink indicates and the research supports, extrinsic offerings don’t always work and in fact may actually make the activity less attractive.  But does this mean that incentives don’t work?  No, it means that what you offer someone as an incentive may not be an incentive.  Whether or not something is an incentive depends on its effect on the person to whom it is offered.  Incentives are meant to incent – to arouse or encourage.  If they don’t do this, then they aren’t incentives even if you call them incentives.

Whether or not something is an incentive, therefore, depends on the person to whom it is offered.  To offer workers who want more money more time off is unlikely to occur as an incentive to them.  In fact, you are likely to hear someting like “What kind of incentive is that?”, or “That’s no incentive?”  Since whether something is an incentive and works as incentive depends on the person to whom it is offered, using incentives is a tricky business.  In fact, many managers have found attempting to use incentives frustrating because they can’t seem to find “what works” and what they can provide isn’t always sufficient.  This is one reason why books on recognition, such as Make Their Day! Employee Recognition that Works, have become popular because they focus on things managers can do other than offer incentives.

One way around this issue is to ask people who are hesitant to do soemthing you want done “What would it take for you to do this?” and then determine whether or not you are willing to “pay the price”.  Another way around this issue is to build the level of integrity in the relationship so that people are accountable for what they say and know that they will be held accountable for what they say.  Surprising as it may seem, most people truly value their word and do not want to gain a repuation for being someone who “says yes, but does no”.  Giving people the opportunity to operate consistent with their word, and then operating consistent with their word, reduces the “guessing game” of incentives.  Then, when you do want to use incentives, you can ask people and they will tell you what will work.