Category Archives: Accountability

Not a Choice

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“How do you make competence necessary?” Naomi asked.

“If you make competence a choice, it is no longer necessary,” I replied. “Competence is a practice. We get better, not because we choose to get better. We get better through practice. It’s the habits we choose, those routine grooved behaviors that determine our competence.”

“I get it,” Naomi nodded. “But I am still stuck.”

“In what ways could your team become more competent? What could they practice? Let’s take something simple. What time does your team get started in the morning?”

Naomi smiled because she already knew where I was headed. “We’re supposed to start at 8 o’clock, but you know, anytime between 8 o’clock and 8:15, and that usually involves coffee and a little joking around.”

“Joking around is good. If we’re not having a bit of fun, what’s the point? As a manager, do you want your team to become more competent at showing up to work?”

“Yes, but that seems a little silly, becoming more competent at showing up to work,” Naomi was still smiling.

“I agree, so let’s shift our focus, from showing up to starting on time. As a manager, do you want your team to become more competent at starting on time?”

“That sounds like a higher goal than just showing up,” Naomi agreed.

“Now, let’s pin starting on time to finishing on time,” I pressed.

“You mean, like meeting deadlines,” she connected. “Yes, as a manager, I want my team to become more competent at meeting deadlines.”

“So, what is the practice, what are the habits required for meeting deadlines?”

“You meet deadlines by starting on time,” Naomi settled.

Simply Necessary

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“It sounds like you understand, or have an accurate sense of your own competence, but your team, faced with a challenge, avoids, denies, or tries to negotiate back to the old way?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s almost like a way of thinking,” Naomi replied. “There are things I know I am not good at, but those things do not scare me. Some on my team seem genuinely afraid of trying something new.”

“But, if you have made it necessary, how do you proceed without a brawl or deliberate retreat?” I smiled.

“I think it is a matter of attitude. A mental state. The circumstances of reality do not change, they are what they are. It’s a matter of how a person sees the challenge of something new. If my team enters with a framework of failure, that it is going to be hard, it is going to suck and they will get yelled at for the failure, then it’s going to be a long day. Somehow, I need to change the framework.”

“But, the difficulty in the process will still be the same?”

“Yes, but it’s quite another thing if the team can see this is new, this is difficult, they will struggle, they will make mistakes, but they will continue. Things will get better and they will have small breakthroughs. Then, there will be a setback. They will have to re-focus. But, they will not get yelled at, they will be encouraged to try again. How long does it take to teach a child to walk? It is simply necessary.”

Muddling

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“Given your intuitive sense of competence, an understanding of your current limits of success, and what it might take to overcome those limits in the future, how does that translate to your team?” I asked.

“To run a marathon, I need to train,” Naomi replied, “I get that. But, my team appears to see things differently. If you gave me a challenge to run a marathon, and I agreed this was something I wanted to do, then I would engage in the necessary training at that distance. When I give my team a challenge, beyond their current ability to perform, they seem to shy away, avoid, make excuses, find something else to busy themselves with.”

“So, first they would have to agree that it was something they wanted to do?” I confirmed.

“In many cases, they don’t have a choice,” Naomi smiled. “If we are changing a process that requires additional technical skills, we are going to change the process, no choice. It’s similar to the question, how long do you give a child to learn to walk? There is no choice.”

“So, as a leader, you make it necessary?” I nodded.

“People will just muddle through, if you let them. If we install a new process, there is no muddle. I have to make it necessary.”

Intuition of Capability

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“How do you know if you are able to do it, unless you try?” I asked.

Naomi looked skeptical in her contemplation. “I think I have a pretty good understanding of my own competence, what I am able to do and what I am not very good at.”

“And, how did you come to that intuitive sense of your ability?” I pressed.

“I guess it’s just self-observing over a lifetime of trials and tribulations,” she replied.

“So, given a new set of circumstances, given a new challenge, you have an existing insight of whether or not you will be successful?”

“More than that,” Naomi countered, “I have a sense of where my failure points would be and what I would have to do to overcome those obstacles. Let’s say I was to try to run a marathon, 26.2 miles this afternoon. I am a runner, but my intuition would be that I would fail. My failure point would be in the lack of conditioning for that distance. But, I also know that if I were to train that distance over a period of 12 weeks, I would most likely be successful.”

“I assume your initial intuition and subsequent analysis is correct,” I nodded. “So, in your role as a leader, how does this self-observation apply to your team members as they are faced with new challenges for which they are not competent?”

Not a Matter of Counting

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Duncan was temporarily reflective. “Yes, we did get behind on our efficiency project. I guess we do need to start over, collecting our metrics again, to see where we are. I think I can pull somebody off, after their shift to begin the count.”

“Do you really thinking counting is going to get the project back on track?”

“It’s a start,” Duncan shrugged.

“Starting the count is doing. Your efficiency project isn’t off the rails because you stopped counting. Your efficiency project disappeared because of the way you think. In the beginning, you were focused on daily improvement of throughput, finding out why things got stuck in your system, how to expedite an order without gumming up the works. Then, something happened that changed the way you think. You got busy. You may have thought that busy-ness was more important than efficiency. You thought that if you could just get all the projects out the door today, we could get back to our efficiency focus tomorrow. Free beer tomorrow never comes.

“Change the way you think first. When you get busy, think how much more important it is to look at your throughput. It is not a matter of finishing all the orders today, so we can get back to efficiency tomorrow. It is all about a focus on efficiency so we can build our capacity to get everything out the door today. It starts by changing the way that you think.”

Ran Out of Gas

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“I haven’t heard from you in a while,” I said. “I assume it’s because everything is going swimmingly with your efficiency process.”

“Yes, yes,” Duncan replied. “I’ve been meaning to call you, but we have been so busy. Frankly, I was hesitant to call, because the efficiency process has stalled. But, we have been so busy that we haven’t been able to focus on our metrics. We haven’t even collected our metrics in over a month. If we want to look at our efficiency trends, we likely will have to start over.”

“What does your gut tell you?” I asked.

“My gut says we got a little busy one week and fell behind. Then we got busier and our metrics lost their priority. Now, we are so busy, the project is off the rails.”

“Do you see any connection between your busy-ness and the loss of focus on your efficiency project? There was a guy driving from Chicago to Florida, on a tight deadline. He ran out gas. Said he didn’t have time to stop to refuel.”

The Truths We Embrace

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“The truth,” Riley started, “is that we have assembled the greatest team in our industry.”

“Impressive,” I said. “And your evidence?”

“This past year, we had record sales and the largest market share among our competitors,” he announced.

“I will agree with the statistics, but you were talking about the truth, you said you have the best team.”

“Doesn’t it follow?” Riley stiff-armed. “That the best team wins?”

“Sometimes,” I replied. “Sometimes not. You believe you have the best team and that is why you exceeded your sales targets. That is your position, your belief. It feels good because it agrees with your world view. But what truth are you ignoring because it doesn’t fit your world view?”

“I’m not following,” Riley resisted.

“How much of your revenue came from a single customer? How much of your revenue came from a single salesperson? I’ve seen those statistics as well. Your biggest chunk of revenue, that put you way over the top came from one customer on a single non-recurring project. And without that one project, your sales would have suffered the biggest drop in five years. If nothing changes, next year does not bode well. Do you believe you will get lucky again, or do you have some work to do?”

Not a Communication Problem

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Thinking about competence, we begin with individual competence. Ultimately, however, we have to think about organizational competence. It not just great output from a single performer, but the output of the organization as people work together.

Organizational structure is simply the way we define the working relationships between people. We represent this on a piece of paper called an organizational chart. We have both vertical working relationships and horizontal working relationships. How well these relationships work will determine the quantity and quality of organizational output.

And, this is where the trouble begins. On the org chart, we draw lines between people, up, down and sideways. We think we understand what those lines mean, but until we specifically define the lines, we will experience organizational friction.

Working relationships are defined by two things, accountability and authority. Most organizational friction looks like a communication problem or a personality conflict, but that’s just a symptom. Underneath, we have a structural problem where we have failed to define, in that working relationship, where and what is the accountability. And, in that working relationship, who has the authority to make what decisions.

People tell me they have a communication problem. I don’t think so. I think you have an accountability and authority problem. Because you failed to define it.

To the Point of Failure

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As a manager, how do we know a team member’s highest level of capability? Capability is invisible. We can only see the output of capability. For that, there is evidence.

We test people through project work. Step one is a quick assessment of their current applied capability. Look at the fruits of their labor. This is an intuitive judgment on the part of the manager.

Step two is to marginally increase the current complexity of the task, in the form of a project, with the promise of project debrief on completion.

If the project is successful, it’s a prompt for the next project, a bit more complex, with the promise of a debrief on completion. Continue. Continue until there is failure.

When a team member reaches the point of failure, we now have a better grasp of the individual’s competence. We know where they are successful and where they fail.

Give it some time and challenge them again. And again. As long as the team member is employed by the organization, it is a continual process of challenge to the point of failure.

Play at the Highest Game

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Skill is made up of two elements, technical knowledge and practiced performance. If the skill is to throw a ball, there is some technical knowledge you need to know about the ball. Does the ball have seams, round or oblong, fingers around the ball or inside the ball, underhand or overhand. You see, there’s some technical knowledge you need to know about the ball.

But if you really want to get good at throwing the ball, you also have to practice. When I interview a candidate, not only will I interview them for their technical knowledge, I will also interview them for their practice. What is your frequency of practice, depth of practice, duration of practice, accuracy of practice? Because if you don’t practice a skill, what happens to the skill?

And, so it also works with challenge. For a person to be happy in their job, they have to be challenged, at least for some material duration of time, to their highest level of competence. This may be as small as ten percent, maybe 40 percent, but some material duration of time. Without challenge, we get bored. Of course, we can complete the mundane portions of our tasks, but without challenge, we go home empty. We completed the checklist, but completed nothing of significance.

As we design roles for people to play, we have to adjust those roles so people play at their highest game, at least for a portion of each day. Because if we don’t practice a skill, the skill goes away.