Why Accountability?

Accountability, it seems, has burst onto the world stage as a red-hot topic of discussion with all the signs of hanging around well into the next decade. Why all of the raging interest in accountability? Here are some of the more urgent concerns and issues linked to accountability in the daily barrage of Google Alerts we regularly monitor: financial crisis, corporate responsibility, environmental protection, global warming, sustainability, transparency, government waste, political rhetoric, fiscal responsibility, malpractice, equal rights, terrorism, mismanagement, fraud, abuse of power, corruption, legal machinations, taxation, values education, healthcare reform, the list goes on. Recent Alerts range from how Governors plan to make state agencies and departments more accountable for the money they spend by cutting their appropriations if they fail to meet their goals and reward them for exceeding expectations to how college and university students in a Campus Accountability Project plan to reform the way campuses deal with sexual violence. Thankfully, everyone is looking everywhere these days for new levels of accountability.

In the business world, two of our books—The Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability and How Did That Happen? Holding People Accountable For Results The Positive, Principled Way—have recently hit The New York Times bestseller list, providing our own anecdotal evidence of the mounting awareness and attention surrounding accountability. What’s more, current client experiences are telling us the same thing. Companies, in unprecedented numbers, are searching for ways to make their organizations and people more accountable for the actions they take and the results they achieve. Not surprisingly, accountability is quickly becoming one of the most important, defining issues of our time.

But it should come as no surprise that interest in accountability and how to more effectively manage it has been building for decades. We began studying and teaching accountability in the late 1980s because we believe that no other attribute of individual or organizational life contributes more to the success of people, teams, and enterprises. Along the way, we have developed approaches to accountability that have helped hundreds of organizations, thousands of leaders, and hundreds of thousands of employees tap the power within themselves to reach new heights. Unleashing the true potential of people and organizations requires creating a work environment with unyielding commitment to full, “make it happen” accountability—an environment where people think and act, on a daily basis, in a manner necessary to handle all the nitty-gritty details, find answers to problems, implement successful solutions, overcome obstacles, prevail over any trouble or threat that might come along, and deliver results. In such a work environment everyone continually asks, “What else can I do to achieve results and turn our vision into reality?” The full power of accountability, whether demonstrated by an individual or an organization, is nothing short of awe-inspiring—and it’s a power whose time has come.