What You Create Accountability For Is What You Get

Everyone is talking about accountability these days, our government wants it, taxpayers demand it, corporations need it, stakeholders insist on it, while far too many people and institutions continue to ignore or avoid it. But exactly what is accountability, and how can you get people to take it? Is it about punishment for not getting results? Is it about taking revenge against someone who has failed to meet your expectations? No.

For us, accountability is more than a way to “act,” or a behavior to display when threatened with punishment for poor performance. It’s more than an “attitude,” of taking responsibility for your actions and not blaming others. Accountability, in its truest and most authentic form, is a personal “attribute” that exemplifies who you are. It is “a way of being” that empowers you, each individual on your team and every single person in your organization, to meet and even surpass your highest expectations.

Everyone who is working to make things happen has probably heard these questions asked on numerous occassions: “Exactly how do we prevent the surprises that so often blindside us, despite all our best efforts to make things happen the way we expect them to happen? How can we improve our follow-up so that we get the results we want? And how do we do it without making people feel resentful, resistant, manipulated, and controlled?” Answering these questions requires understanding the inseparable connection between expectations and accountability—that’s when you begin to discover the secret to holding others accountable. Why? Because we only hold people accountable for one thing: the expectations we have of them. Whether the expectation is for someone to turn in a report on time, make a sale this quarter, build a product according to certain specifications, or ship a part by a certain time of the day, they are all expectations—things we need other people to do for us. The very process of managing these expectations becomes the act of holding others accountable. Performing this act in a positive, principled way will not only deliver results, it will simultaneously raise both individual and organizational morale.