Category Archives: Accountability

Practice

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“But, we sent him to training,” Marjorie was disappointed.

“Just exactly what did you expect him to learn from the training?” I asked.

“His role in the company requires a very specific skill set. Without this technical knowledge, our engineers will bulldoze him over.”

“Is it possible,” I wanted to know, “that your disappointment has little to do with technical knowledge and more to do with the application of that knowledge? What you are expecting may only be learned by doing. Like riding a bicycle. Most training works only on the technical knowledge part, not the application part. And, the application must be practiced, over and over, before you see progress.”

What Changed?

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“But, this has worked, over and over for the past ten years. I am not sure why this project failed,” Jordan explained.

“First of all, the idea that originated ten years ago is not the same idea that has worked all along,” I replied. “You have modified and tweaked that idea each time there was a subtle shift in its application.”

Jordan was complaining. In this case, at this time, he would rather complain than consider a new idea he didn’t like.

“Each time you tweaked the idea,” I continued, “the shift was so subtle that you hardly noticed. And, your idea worked until it didn’t. Something has changed. Something has changed internally, externally or both. What was it?”

The Distraction of Advice

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Al Ripley believed, for every management problem, there was a management consultant. As issues surfaced in meetings, Al would look down his nose, over the top rim of his glasses, and ask the inevitable. “Don’t we know a consultant that can help us with that?” Outbound Air.

Consultants may be necessary and provide helpful direction, but a consultant will never lead you to the promised land.

The lower the capability of the team, the more consultants, the more tools will be purchased to offset. Those temporary measures can only be hurdled by building the capability of the team. Success can only be achieved with the right tools and guidance in the capable hands of your team. It has less to do with the guidance and tools and more to do with the capability of the team.

Best of Intention

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The intention to become a high performance company, or the intention to become a high performance team will not attract high performers. It may attract curiosity. It may attract attention to your attempts, but you will not receive commendations for trying.

The only measure of performance is performance.

You will only attract high performers when you are in a state of high performance. And, that starts with you. Yoda says, “Do or do not, there is no TRY.”

Timespan as a Measure of Capability

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There is a famous psychology experiment using marshmallows and children to illustrate delayed gratification. Walter Mischel’s study collected data about participants and their choice to eat one marshmallow now OR wait fifteen minutes for the promise of a second marshmallow. Participants were then assessed years later where stark differences were observed related to academic achievement, health, obesity and SAT scores.

While the study seems to indicate a subject’s willpower or self-control, it can also be seen to illustrate an individuals timespan framework. What sacrifice can be made now for an improved future outcome?

Why organize for a better future outcome? Why not eat the marshmallow, or all the marshmallows now? If the problem is hunger, it certainly seems like a proper solution. Except, at some point, we might get full. And, we might even have some marshmallows left over for later. Boom. Delayed gratification becomes a concept in the scenario “Be kind to your future self.”

It also opens up the possibility of being kind to other people with our leftover marshmallows. In children, we see this as sharing. In adults, we see this as trade. Sharing is not a one-sided transaction, it is sharing now with the promise (at least hope) that at some time in the future, when we are out of marshmallows, that a friend would reciprocate.

This example illustrates short timespan options, but what if the organizational sacrifice is larger? Can we organize more complex sacrifices to solve more complex problems? Can we commit our time in research and study with no near-term payoff to create a technology in the future that will solve more complex problems?

What sacrifice can be made now for an improved future outcome? A bag of marshmallows might satiate immediate hunger, but what about our hunger for tomorrow? And what about next week? It has been said that man cannot live by marshmallows alone, so what of the health impact of a diet of sugar treats? Enlarging the problem of feeding an individual to feeding a family, to feeding a community, to feeding a nation-state, it is not just detail complexity, but complexity defined by the uncertainty of the future.

Would you agree there are some problems in the world that most people can solve?  But, as the complexity of the problem increases, some of those people will struggle. We can measure that complexity in timespan.

Timespan becomes a proxy for problem complexity with a concomitant proxy as a measure of human capability.

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.

Accountability and Authority

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I made sly reference to these two concepts last week. Accountability and authority. These are inseparable.

To be accountable for an output, one must have the authority to determine the variables around that output. Do not hamstring a team member by handing them accountability without the authority to control variables. Bifurcating the two leads to well articulated excuses and blaming behavior.

Simultaneously, do not give someone the authority to control variables without the concomitant accountability. Government oversight committees are famous for wanting to have all the authority without accountability.

These two concepts go hand in glove, not either-or, but AND-and.

Fixing Accountability

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Elliott Jaques’ framework gets to the heart of work. In the pursuit of any worthy goal, work is – making decisions and solving problems. As time goes by, headcount increases and soon we have an organization, with organizational problems. Who makes the decisions? Who is accountable for those decisions? Who decides methodology, problem solving? Who is accountable for solving the problem?

Finger pointing and blaming behavior are not quirks of personality. They are symptoms of an organization that failed to define accountability and authority. Who is accountable?

I had a client in the carpet cleaning business. Every once in a while, thank goodness only every once in a while, a carpet technician would ruin a customer’s carpet. Who did my client want to choke up against the wall?

Elliott assumed that carpet technician showed up for work that day with the full intention to do their best. It is the manager Elliott would hold accountable for output.

Elliott assumed the manager hired the carpet technician, trained the technician, provided the tools for the technician, coached the technician, selected the project for the technician. The manager controlled all the variables around that technician. It is the manager that Elliott would hold accountable for output.

We typically place accountability one level of work too low in the framework. It’s the manager who is accountable.

The Lynchpin in the Framework

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Could it have anything to do with time?

Order is what we know. Chaos is what we don’t know. Most people talk about the past, up to the present time. It is tangible and concrete. By studying the patterns and trends of the past, we can forecast the future, with some reliability. At least for a day. After two days, that reliability begins to break down and by the time a week is passed, reliability becomes a crapshoot with probabilities and margins for error.

The leader is not the person who can best predict. The leader is the person who is comfortable with and can effectively adapt to the uncertainty of the future. The lynchpin in organizational structure is timespan.

Discretion is about decision making. The timespan of discretion defines the uncertainty in a role. We reserve certain decisions for certain roles based on timespan. Timespan helps us understand specific levels of decision making. And there is appropriate decision making at every level of work.

  • S-I – appropriate decision making from 1 day to 3 months
  • S-II – appropriate decision making from 3 months to 12 months
  • S-III – appropriate decision making from 1 year to 2 years
  • S-IV – appropriate decision making from 2 years to 5 years
  • S-V – appropriate decision making from 5 years to 10 years

Timespan helps us understand specific levels of problem solving. And there is appropriate problem solving at every level of work.

  • S-I – effective problem solving using trial and error
  • S-II – effective problem solving using documented processes and best practices
  • S-III – effective problem solving using root cause analysis
  • S-IV – effective problem solving using multi-system analysis
  • S-V – effective problem solving using internal system and external system analysis

Timespan is the lynchpin that defines the framework for organizational structure. It provides guidance to the complexity of the work. It provides guidance on who should make which decisions. Timespan provides guidance of who should be whose manager.

Most importantly, timespan structures the value stream necessary for a hierarchy of competence. This hierarchy of competence defines accountability and authority. Elliott describes this as a management accountability hierarchy (MAH).

After Midnight

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Elliott Jaques was a Canadian born psychologist, scientist, researcher, practitioner who focused on organizational structure. Through the course of his research, he discovered the lynchpin. You would think the discovery would have been in the hallowed halls of a research library, or standing beside a chalkboard of mathematical equations. But it had more to do with a knock on the door after midnight with a small group of addled shop stewards who had consumed one too many pints.

Order and chaos. Order is what we know, chaos is what we don’t know. We know the past, at least our perception of the past, all the way up to the present time. But, once we move through the present time into the future, uncertainty creeps in, ambiguity tiptoes in the shadows. Chaos lives in the future. And the further into the future, the more chaos there is, uncertainty, ambiguity.

“Elliott, Elliott. Wake up Elliott. We think we found it.”

“Found what? It’s after midnight and you guys have been drinking.”

“Elliott, Elliott. Could it have anything to do with time?”

“Guys, can’t we pick this up in the morning? It’s late.”

“No, Elliott. Could it have anything to do with time? You know, the guys on the shop floor, they get paid by the hour. Their supervisors, they get paid by the week. And the managers, well, the managers get paid by the month and the vice presidents, their compensation is stated in terms of a year. Could it have anything to do with time?

“The guys on the shop floor, they are accountable for things happening on a day to day basis. Their supervisors are accountable for scheduling and lead times for the next week or a month. Their managers are accountable for annual plans and targets. The vice presidents are accountable for the longest projects, more than a year.  Could the lynchpin we are looking for in organizational structure be all about time?”

And they never looked back.