There's a story about accountability I will share with you...
There are four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.
A low accountability culture works is like an infection that works against value creation within organisations. Some of the symptoms of a low accountability culture to watch out for are:
Leaders are averse to challenge: leaders set the culture in an organisation and if they not comfortable with respectful challenge, having robust peer discussions, having their team's performance benchmarked or they resist external review then they are creating a low accountability culture.
Leaders are focused on processes rather than results.
Leaders tell everyone their teams what a great job they're doing regardless of reality.
Deliverables are not specific and measurable: KPI's such as "improve customer loyalty" are the sort you will find in a low accountability culture. How will this be measured? What is the benchmark and is this being tracked and trended? What improvement are we aiming to achieve over what timeframe?
Leaders strenuously defend status quo regardless of changing circumstances.
There is very low turnover amongst leadership: A lack of turnover amongst the leadership ranks is not always good for culture. It is important to get fresh perspectives and new ideas into an organisation's leadership for time to time to ensure there is diversity of experience and thinking and to challenge the status quo.
Nobody wants to stretch themselves: People are quick to complain about the way things are but nobody steps up to deliver the solutions.
If the leadership conducts themselves in this manner you will end up with negative long-term results:
Performance of teams will be low: Leaders that avoid difficult conversations and that are not challenging their teams are going to allow the minimum acceptable standard for performance to drop to a low level.
Innovation with be stifled: If we cling to the status quo and long-standing business processes we stop flexibility and innovation.
Productivity and efficiency will be lower than the competition: If leaders are not open to challenge, external opinion and KPIs and not being tracked and benchmarked then efficiency will drop behind the competition.
Jobs satisfaction will be low: If teams are not being stretched and challenged to deliver results and achieve difficult tasks job satisfaction will suffer.
Goals will not be achieved: If deliverables are not clear and sole points of accountability are not being determined you will struggle to achieve goals.
Luckily there are simple fixes to start to turn a low accountability culture around and start delivering improved value to your bottom line and your customers.
Contact Key Executive Solutions today to start your journey.
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