Mariana counted on her fingers. “Necessity requires clarity, competence and habits,” she nodded.

I smiled. “Did I mention conscientiousness?.** It’s a mental state related to personal responsibility. You would observe conscientiousness in the things a person feels obligated to do, in their persistence to complete a task, to maintain necessary standards.”

“How will I know, if a person is conscientious or not?” Mariana asked.

“It’s there in front of you to observe. Given a task, the person may have a few questions, but they do not procrastinate. They get right to it and work to the end. They will never ask – Is that good enough? If you were clear in the standard, they will know what is good enough.”

“We started this discussion,” Mariana said, “because you told me the reason my team underperformed is because I had not made the performance standard necessary. Making performance necessary must be my accountability.”

I nodded in agreement, before I added one more thing.
—
**Conscientiousness is a trait measured by the Big Five Assessment, free version here.