Accountability is the Answer!

These days, every dollar spent on training has to show a return. Business leaders are looking for training that works–training that helps them produce the results they are being held accountable to achieve. That’s why training on accountability is the answer to producing immediate impact and results that bring a difference straight to the bottom line. Increasing the level of personal and organizational accountability FOR the results people need to deliver focuses the training application on what people are accountable to do in their jobs on a day-to-day basis.

For example, take Jennifer of the Women’s Boutique (a real story, but a disguised name), a national women’s clothing chain. As District Manager, she never did well in the company-wide annual women’s Suit Sale. In fact, she was often the lowest performing District. She determined that all of that would change this year. With some insight gained from training by her Regional Manager, she knew that the biggest thing she was missing in her district was “accountability.”

In the past, when her store managers explained why they were not getting the result, it was always the weather (too hot to wear a suit), the economy (people can’t afford suits) and the culture (women just don’t wear that many suits!) And she always bought into these explanations.

Based on her new understanding of what it means to hold someone accountable, Jennifer went to work in her District. First, she thoughtfully determined what she wanted to have happen in each of her stores. Then she met with each store manager and explained what she wanted to achieve and got them on board. Finally, she did something that she did very little of in the past–she inspected what she wanted by going out to each store in the District during the sale.

Her efforts paid off. Jennifer was recognized by the company at the conclusion of the 4-week period as the top performing District in the annual Suit Sale! The transition from last place to top performer was huge and everyone in the company took notice.

Jennifer applied the steps of what we call The Accountability SequenceTM to hold her team accountable in the positive, principled way. A way that motivates people to embrace accountability and to make sure others are doing the same. This kind of accountability builds morale and helps people feel good about their work, their boss and their organization.

The Accountability Sequence is the central model to the new training that we offer as the “Others Track” in the Three Tracks to Creating Greater AccountabilityTM. You can learn more about The Accountability Sequence and holding people accountable the positive, principled way by visiting our website, attending our upcoming complimentary Author Webinar or by experiencing one of our Public Workshops in your area. Based on two decades of working with this topic, we remain convinced that accountability is the answer to improving performance, achieving results and building positive morale at every level in an organization.