{"id":2070,"date":"2018-01-08T12:29:04","date_gmt":"2018-01-08T02:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelimegroup.com\/?p=2070"},"modified":"2018-01-08T12:45:32","modified_gmt":"2018-01-08T02:45:32","slug":"accountability-let-start-doing-it-like-we-actually-mean-it-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelimegroup.com\/wordpress\/accountability-let-start-doing-it-like-we-actually-mean-it-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Accountability \u2013 let’s start doing it like we actually mean it (Part Two)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

Ed Hurst – Senior Consultant<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Part One of this blog, I discussed the fact that organizations are responding to the need to improve performance (and, for some, the need to address toxic PR incidents) by investing millions of dollars in initiatives designed to promote a \u2018culture of accountability\u2019.\u00a0 But many are failing to make progress. These apparently-logical initiatives more or less amount to carrying on as normal while imposing \u2018solutions\u2019 on people top-down.\u00a0 That\u2019s not what accountability looks or feels like\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

So, your brand is in trouble because your company keeps making serious mistakes and finding itself caught in PR nightmares.\u00a0 This, in turn, is leading to increased legal\/regulatory scrutiny of alleged unethical behavior.\u00a0 Customers are viewing you with serious doubts.\u00a0 You care a lot about being a principled, customer-oriented company, and shareholders are concerned, so you have taken these setbacks seriously.<\/p>\n

When implementing remedial action, you didn\u2019t just rely on existing solutions or delegate it as usual.\u00a0 You approached building a culture of accountability with the same degree of senior management focus and robust process as your other most critical initiatives.\u00a0 When something has such a huge impact on the business, you deal with it decisively from the top \u2013 to lock the problem down and fix it so you can move on.\u00a0 But six\u2026 twelve\u2026 eighteen months later, no material change in culture is evident and new problems keep emerging.\u00a0 Something has to be done!<\/p>\n

With almost any other problem threatening your business, decisive top-down action is the right thing to do.\u00a0 The trouble is that it kills accountability \u2013 because people don\u2019t start acting responsibly and accountably just because you roll out a program.\u00a0 In fact, the more you attempt to mandate or \u2018force\u2019 people to be accountable, the less room you leave for them to truly hold themselves accountable for doing the right things.\u00a0 People in highly accountable cultures do the right thing even when no one is watching (not because they are being watched).\u00a0 When building a culture of accountability, the direct route from problem to solution doesn\u2019t work.\u00a0 This journey has to go via \u2018people feeling like the problem is theirs\u2019.<\/p>\n

So direct top-down action isn\u2019t the answer.\u00a0 But we also can\u2019t throw up our hands and do nothing about accountability \u2013 because getting this wrong is costing us heavily.\u00a0 So, what\u2019s the answer\u2026?<\/p>\n

Successful organizations have found that they can foster accountability if they tackle it indirectly<\/strong>.\u00a0 The key is not to try and roll it out \u2013 but to create an environment where it will happen, apparently by itself, but actually as a result of strategically putting the right ingredients in place.<\/p>\n

As I said in Part One of this blog, most organizations over-index on logic when looking for solutions \u2013 appealing to people\u2019s heads by implementing rational initiatives.\u00a0 But effective strategies need a healthy mixture of heads <\/strong>(logic), hearts <\/strong>(engaging with how people feel) and hands<\/strong> (practical solutions that achieve traction), because that\u2019s how people actually form new mindsets, behaviors and culture.<\/p>\n

In Part Three of this blog, I will focus on some of the key solutions that form the hands<\/em> part of the equation.\u00a0 But first, let\u2019s talk about hearts<\/em>.\u00a0 Because that\u2019s where real change starts \u2013 and what we most often misunderstand.<\/p>\n

How do you engage people\u2019s hearts so that they feel personally driven to be accountable for the actions they take at work?\u00a0 How do you build meaning and passion into the workplace so that people feel personally invested?\u00a0 The starting point is to articulate a vision that is clear and compelling <\/strong>\u2013 something worth working hard for individually and together.\u00a0 <\/strong>This is so important because you can\u2019t ask people to take accountability for what they do in pursuit of company goals if they don\u2019t understand and sincerely believe in them.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t enough on its own, of course, but without a shared vision, there\u2019s simply no hope of a culture of accountability being formed.<\/p>\n

And here, we encounter a really tricky problem.<\/p>\n

When I say, \u201carticulating a vision\u201d, I don\u2019t mean wordsmithing the sort of utopian or blandly positive aspiration that most companies create when describing what they stand for.\u00a0 I mean something that truly encapsulates what your organization exists to achieve, how you do business, why it\u2019s important and how people will benefit.\u00a0 Something that demonstrates how you will take brave and honest decisions \u2013 even in the tough moments \u2013 in ways that everyone can see and relate to.<\/p>\n

When articulating our vision and values, most of us write positive-sounding manifestos that end up sounding so unrelated to real events as to render them instantly irrelevant.\u00a0 Let\u2019s be frank, even when people want to believe in them, many of us simply dismiss them as out of touch.\u00a0 There is a gulf between what we say we value and what we actually do in running our businesses day-to-day.<\/p>\n

Why is that?<\/p>\n

Well, one reason is that most companies talk about their vision\/values without referring to the fact that we are seeking to make money, and why that\u2019s a valuable thing to do.\u00a0 We know people are instinctively skeptical of the profit motive, so we simply avoid mentioning it.\u00a0 But when we talk as though we do business simply out of the goodness of our hearts, nobody takes anything we say seriously.\u00a0 Some people might even believe that, because you are hiding your focus on profits, you secretly will be ok with them doing questionable things that make money.\u00a0 The whole vision\/values statement is dismissed as insincere \u2013 including the very things we want people to be accountable for \u2013 and our credibility as leaders suffers as a result.<\/p>\n

A much more positive way of handling this issue is demonstrating that business success is a win\u2011win.\u00a0 When we make money, our employees are enabled to have jobs and our shareholders keep investing in us.\u00a0 Above all, it\u2019s probably an indicator that we\u2019re doing a good job.\u00a0 As long as we\u2019re operating in a competitive market place, making money suggests that customers are happy enough to choose<\/em> to pay for our products and services.\u00a0 And successful companies tend to be the ones that treat their people well.\u00a0 So profits are both a positive outcome and a measure of some pretty noble aspirations.\u00a0 We need to get better at talking about this \u2013 not just unashamedly but with genuine passion.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s so much more than that.\u00a0 If people are going to choose<\/em> to act with accountability, our vision and values need to be compelling to every individual.\u00a0 They must capture how what we are doing is important on a personal level.\u00a0 If there\u2019s one thing that every human being needs, it\u2019s a sense of meaning and purpose.\u00a0 Yet most people in organizations spend so much of their lives with little sense of passion for what they are doing.\u00a0 Have you ever chosen to do something that involved hard work \u2013 even some pretty unpleasant tasks \u2013 but done it gladly because you\u2019re helping to achieve something you believe in?\u00a0 If you have that feeling, it makes any challenge seem worthwhile and it makes us all take responsibility for doing things well.\u00a0 What could be better for a culture of accountability than that feeling, multiplied by thousands of employees?<\/p>\n

But when we talk about our vision and values, we can\u2019t help producing nifty one\u2011liners to put on the wall, our website and press releases \u2013 then thinking that the task is complete, leaving us free to carry on as normal.\u00a0 In some ways, this makes sense because crisp definitions are a great way of summarizing and broadcasting the message.\u00a0 But if that\u2019s all we do, it\u2019s nothing more than sloganizing.\u00a0 And, as leaders, doing better than that should be our \u2018day job\u2019.<\/p>\n

The trouble is that words alone \u2013 especially when transmitted by companies\/bosses \u2013 are a very poor means of communicating something.\u00a0 What we need is to recognize that, when it comes to driving accountability, our job as leaders is to support our vision and values by continuously creating highly effective dialogue<\/em> that builds shared meaning and purpose.\u00a0 This is not something that can be delegated to HR or our Marketing\/Communications teams (though they have a key role in it).\u00a0 It cannot be done as a one-off task or talked about only when problems arise.\u00a0 Top leaders need to be centrally involved at all times \u2013 and seen to be so by everyone.<\/p>\n

A true dialogue feels like everyone is listening as well as speaking; that leaders are available, accessible, honest and approach the conversation as authentic human beings doing something truly meaningful, not as machines churning out corporate messages.\u00a0 That people\u2019s contributions actually have the potential to influence decisions.\u00a0 That it\u2019s safe to say anything even if it\u2019s challenging the status quo.\u00a0 We must avoid the bland, the \u2018right thing to say\u2019 \u2013 our top priority should be to share in our sense of purpose in a way that makes people truly want <\/em>to contribute in any way they can.<\/p>\n

This continuous listening <\/em>is essentially story-telling that involves going beyond one-liners and slogans and into the \u2018juice\u2019 of the vision and values.\u00a0 Talking about the impact we create and making it real for everyone.\u00a0 As leaders, it requires us to be close to our people and to have a knack of relating to others.\u00a0 It\u2019s easy, in senior positions, to understand and believe in what we are trying to do and to forget how remote that can feel to everyone else \u2013 employees and customers alike.<\/p>\n

So we need to prioritize and have energy for connecting with our people and creating shared meaning.\u00a0 And it requires us to live up to what we say.<\/p>\n

This is all very different from rolling out systems and initiatives to advance accountability, expecting people to just start doing it \u2013 then carrying on as normal, as though the problem is fixed and our work is somehow separate from why we may (or may not) feel accountable.\u00a0 It\u2019s about engaging with our people in a new way about the very heart of our business.<\/p>\n

In the next installment of this blog, I\u2019ll share more of the approaches that we\u2019ve found to advance accountability, focusing on practical solutions that build on our vision to achieve traction \u2013 including shaping how people operate through creating consistent consequences and crafting a talent strategy that promotes a culture of accountability.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Lime Group is a team of expert problem-solvers working at the intersection of strategy, leadership and culture.\u00a0 With offices in Sydney, New York, and London,\u00a0we bring a fresh approach and unmatched energy to solving our clients\u2019 most difficult organizational problems.\u00a0 We design, build and deliver culture shift programs; executive team effectiveness journeys; and transformational communications approaches. Visit us at\u00a0 <\/em>www.thelimegroup.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed Hurst – Senior Consultant
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