Tag Archives: accountability

Infectious

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“You said, being a victim is a mental state?” Carson wanted to explore.

“Yes, it can even be more pervasive,” I replied. “There is a continuum – a mood, which is temporary, to a mental state, or a prolonged mood, to the way we see the world, a belief, which is longer term, persistent, base on a thought we think over and over. Moods are easy to change with ice cream. A mental state, not so much. And beliefs become ingrained, not permanent, but doggedly stubborn.”

“And infectious,” Carson flatly stated.

“How so?” I asked.

“I can have a teammate in a mood, let’s say, not so positive, bordering on negative. That mood influences other teammates, mostly at the water cooler. ‘You wouldn’t believe what happened to me on the way to work today. This guy cut me off in traffic, almost crashed my car’.”

“And, now you get a better story from someone else, and on it goes, until it creates a mental state for the whole team,” I smiled.

“What’s worse, the team now has to solve a real work problem from a triggered state. And, the real problem becomes the vehicle of bad luck, for which the team has no accountability.”

“It’s a cycle,” I nodded. “How do you interrupt the cycle? How do you, as a manager, shift the mental state of the team?”

Obesity

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“Yes, luck would be easier to blame things on,” I nodded. “Luck is something outside of our control. It is popular, because it allows us to be off the hook on accountability.”

Carson chimed in. “Good luck or bad luck is a common scapegoat. Luck doesn’t require us to understand what happens when things go well, more specifically, what we did in sequence when things go well, things we might repeat. It was just luck. Luck allows my team to shrug their shoulders when things go poorly. It was just luck. It allows the team to exist as a victim, without agency that might impact the outcome one way or another.”

“And, being a victim creates a cottage industry of people, consultants, special programs to manicure external circumstances to suit the victim mental state,” I said. “We used to describe the role of a parent, and you can think the role of a manager in a similar capacity, was to prepare the child for the path of life. We now see parents, consultants, special programs preparing the path of life for the child, who now has no accountability.”

“Like lung cancer is no longer the fault of the smoker. Or obesity is no longer the fault of the overeater, or more directly, the grocery shopper. It is a matter of corporate greed and the solution is a GLP-1 drug,” Carson mused.

“So, how do we improve the situation, prevent the death spiral of victimhood?” I asked. “How do we prepare the child for the path of life. How do we prepare our team members for the path of their employment?”

And, at the Bottom?

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“It still looks like a communication problem,” Nolan insisted. “They are in a meeting, they are talking. Yes, there is a checklist. That is what they are communicating about.”

“I will agree, there is communication, but that is not the problem. The problem is that there are no dumpsters on the job site to haul away the debris and your project gets delayed by a day.”

“But, they are talking about a checklist, it’s communication,” he continued to push back.

“Yes, they are talking about the items on the checklist, but I helped design that checklist,” I nodded. “What is at the bottom of the checklist?”

Nolan was trying to imagine the checklist and what checklist item was last on the list.

“Below the items on the list,” I directed.

It suddenly became clear. “You are right,” Nolan admitted. “At the bottom is a signature line for both the estimator and the project manager to sign. It’s not just a checklist, it’s a commitment list.”

“Not a communication problem,” I said. “It’s an accountability and authority issue.”

It’s a Box on a Checklist

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“What’s the name of the movie that said – What we have here is a failure to communicate?” Nolan asked.

“You are way too young to have seen Cool Hand Luke,” I replied. “So, what’s the problem?”

Nolan nodded, “We have a communication problem.”

“I don’t believe in communication problems,” I nodded back. “A breakdown in communication is only a symptom of the problem. So, again, what’s the problem?”

“The first part of every project is a demolition phase, to tear down what was already there. The crew shows up, tears things down, but there are no dumpsters to haul away the debris. The project manager says the estimator left the dumpsters off the bid package. The estimator says the project manager should have known because we have dumpsters on every project. Looks like a communication problem to me.”

“I don’t believe in communication problems and I don’t think you have one. What you have, is an accountability and authority issue. In the working relationship between your project manager and your estimator, they have a handoff meeting at the beginning of the project. That meeting is so predictable that you have a checklist to make sure that everything is covered. I would bet that somewhere on that checklist is the word dumpster.”

“You are right,” Nolan said. “But they didn’t talk about it, AND it wasn’t included in the bid package.”

“Look,” I stared at Nolan, “you have an estimator, a project manager and a checklist in a meeting. In that meeting, what is the accountability of the estimator and what is the accountability of the project manager?  It is up to you to define that.”

Not-So-Intelligent

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“That makes sense,” Luke said. “It was a little outside our normal behavior, giving nurses the authority to question a doctor about hand washing.”

“That’s the problem with normal,” I replied. “Normal is just repeated behavior regardless of the outcome. It’s the desired outcome we have to pay attention to, not what is normal.”

“I agree,” Luke nodded. “Likely, we would never make that decision without looking at mortality rates. It was only when we asked the nurses, that things became clear.”

“When you examine systems, you have to figure out how that system emerged. Was it designed to produce an outcome, or did it arrive out of repeated behaviors, ingrained as habits, without regard for the outcome?” I stopped. “A not-so-intelligent system makes even competent people (surgeons and nurses) look dumb. Eventually, competent people will overcome a not-so-intelligent system, if you give them permission, better yet, ask them.”

Is It the People or the System?

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“You are saying,” Luke started, “that if I see friction in the system, I should look at the system, rather than trying to fix the people?”

I nodded affirmative. “You can have intelligently designed systems, if you create them. But, most systems emerge as a set of outcomes created by random behavior. Worse. Those random behaviors get repeated and become the norm.”

“But, we have standards,” Luke protested. “This is a hospital. We have to inspect and comply with those standards.

“Tell me,” I prodded. “A few years back, you made a change at your hospital. You had a not-so-intelligent system in your operating theatre that created a problem. Mortality rates in your surgical area were statistically above the norm. Even your doctors scratched their heads trying to figure this out. So, you asked your nursing staff what could be the problem. They recommended that you change your system, to make it more intelligent.”

“I remember,” Luke nodded. “We had to change our system of authority. Often, our surgeons were not washing their hands sufficiently prior to surgery. Of course, in the hospital, the surgeon has the authority for most all decisions. We changed our system to give the nursing staff the authority to question a surgeon related to hand-washing. We brought all the nurses and all the surgeons in the same room to discuss and create this new authority for nurses.”

“What happened?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Mortality statistically came back in line within seven days,” Luke replied.

I nodded. “You didn’t change the people, you changed the system.”

The Friction Inside

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“Two people, working together, are likely very nice individuals apart from each other,” I continued. “As the manager, when you put those two people together, you place them in a system. Most often, that system is not defined and dysfunction emerges.”

“I always hope they can figure it out, the working together part,” Luke nodded. “And, most of the time, these teams get along, but there are always things that create friction.”

“As the manager, you notice these things,” I said.

“In an instant,” Luke agreed. “But even when I point things out, and get nodding agreement from everyone, the instant I leave, they go back to the friction-way of doing things.”

“It’s often a matter of telling, or rather not-telling,” I replied. “You tell, you talk, and they pretend to listen. Your team has difficulty making sense of the friction, until they discover it for themselves. Any parent, faced with the same dilemma usually tries these two things with the same result. They speak louder and with more frequency – if I told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times.”

Luke nodded. He had two children, he was familiar with the parental response of louder and more often.

“There are two things we have to define,” I smiled. “In this working relationship, who is accountable for what? And, in this working relationship, who has the authority to make what decisions? Then stand back and simply ask questions.”

“Questions?” Luke looked at me sideways.

“Questions. The best managers are not those who tell people what to do. The best managers are those who ask the best questions, to help the team make sense of the friction, to help them discover it for themselves.”

People System

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I nodded. “So, shifting things around inside your system requires that you be alert to the immediate proximity, but also for unintended consequences in a remote part of the system.”

Luke agreed. “It is easy to see when it is a defined step in the system. We can always move things around. But, I saw something else.”

“Pray tell?” I said.

“We have workflow systems,” he started. “In our workflow we can identify discreet steps that are contained. A step starts here, a step ends there. This step impacts that step and impacts another step way over here. But there is another, more complicated system I have to pay attention to. My people system puts players in proximity that have to work together. Working relationships are like steps in a system. If I change a person out, I change the working relationship. A new relationship emerges that starts from scratch and has to be built around these two questions. In this working relationship, what is the accountability for one person to the other person? And, in this working relationship, who has the authority to make what decisions? So, steps in a workflow are easy. People in a workflow, not so much.”

Permission?

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“But, I want to empower my team,” Nadia explained. “They shouldn’t have to ask permission for every little thing they do.”

“Do you think empowerment is all about permission?” I asked. “Empowerment is such a weasel word. What are you really trying to accomplish?”

“I just want them to know that I trust them, that I have good intentions toward them,” she replied.

“That you trust them in general? Or that you trust them with something specific?” I pressed.

“Trust them in general I guess,” Nadia shook her head. “To trust them with something specific, I would have to know what the specific thing was.”

“Now, you have clarity,” I chuckled. “Trusting someone in general is what makes empowerment such a weasel word. It is only operative under specific circumstances. I would rather replace the word empowerment with two other words, authority and accountability. Under a specific circumstance, you, as a manager and at your discretion, delegate the authority to make a decision. When you delegate the authority, you also delegate the accountability that goes with the decison. You can’t have one without the other.”

Horizontal Accountability and Authority

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Organizational structure is the way we define the working relationship between two people with respect to accountability and authority. Vertical relationships are managerial, assumptive in nature, it’s the manager who has both the authority and the accountability for output.

Horizontal relationships, however, are tricky. Two people are required to work together but neither is each other’s manager. Notice the word is required, not recommended, not suggested, but required. In that working relationship, who is accountable and who has the authority? This is the dotted line dilemma.

And this is a dilemma, because most companies fail to define the accountability and authority in horizontal working relationships. Most companies hope the two people will just figure it out and get along. But, they don’t. The trouble presents as a communication problem or a personality conflict, when it is in fact, a structural issue.

My favorite example is the marketing director and the sales director. Neither is each other’s manager, but they are required to coordinate together. We hope they would be able to figure it out, but they don’t, because we failed to define the accountability and the authority in that horizontal working relationship. Just like how Discord servers can struggle with managing large communities—especially with limits like those outlined by Themarketingheaven.com—organizations must set clear structures to ensure seamless collaboration.

The marketing director and the sales director are both accountable to construct their respective annual budgets prior to December of each year. They are also required to meet and coordinate where things require coordination. The marketing director may plan and budget for trade shows, but must coordinate with the sales director to allocate sales people to participate in the trade show booth. The sales director may plan and budget to add additional sales people to the sales team, but must coordinate with the marketing director to add more lead flow from the marketing system.

So, if the marketing director calls a meeting with the sales director, is the sales director obligated to go? Yes, why?  Because we have established an accountability for respective annual budgets and required that they coordinate.

Of course they have to schedule the coordination meeting at a suitable time, but they are required to do so.

Defining the accountability and the authority in these horizontal working relationships is what makes them tick.