“I don’t get it,” Landon lamented. “Three of the team did it the way they were trained, two of them did it another way. In the meeting, they all agreed, described the method they were going to use. I wish I could figure out a way to understand why they say one thing and do another?”

“Let’s look at the facts,” I replied. “What is the difference between the three team members who followed the training, completed the task and the two team members who failed?”

“I don’t know,” Landon shook his head.

“For the three team members who followed the training, it was necessary,” I said. “For the other two team members, it wasn’t necessary.”

“What do you mean, necessary?” he asked. “I can’t chop off their fingers, though I could promise to yell at them.”

“As if yelling at someone, lecturing someone, writing up someone makes it necessary?” I observed. “Those are things on the outside. What makes for internal necessity? Tell me, Landon, what is something you do every day, that you aren’t particularly enthused about, but you do it anyway?”

Landon thought. “I brush my teeth. Not something I enjoy or pursue, but something I do every day.”

“Simple enough,” I agreed. “Why? Why do you do it every day. Why do you find it necessary to do every day?”

“Because I don’t want my teeth to rot out, obviously.”

“So every day, you imagine being 90 years old sporting a set of pearly white teeth?” I wanted to know.

Landon chuckled. “No, maybe that’s what my dentist tells me, but I do it, just because I do it.”

“Landon, you do it because it is necessary. It has become necessary, as a habit, you just do it. Habits are internal necessities that we repeat over and over. You would not think of skipping, because it has become necessary. When you look at your team, where do you see necessity? What is different about the three who did from the two who did not?”

“I am so frustrated,” Julie stammered. “We have a project with a tight deadline. There is one way to get it done on time and a dozen other ways to get it done late. I don’t know why the team doesn’t see it my way.”

“This is a cross-functional team?” I asked. “You are not the manager of the other people on the team?”

“No, that’s the problem,” she said. “If it was my team, I could just tell them what to do. This team is temporary just for this project. I can’t dictate anything. We have to discuss, agree, then execute.”

“Who is ultimately accountable for the project?” I wanted to know.

“Well, there is a project leader,” Julie responded. “She has the authority to decide how the project will go.”

“And, your accountability?”

“I’m just a member of the team,” she rattled off.

“But, don’t you still have accountability, to show up to the meetings, think about your best strategy, be persuasive in your point of view, debate the alternatives?”

“Yes, that is true,” Julie nodded.

“So, each of you has accountability, you to actively participate with your best thinking, and the project leader accountable for the output of the project. But, the authority to ultimately determine the methods and construction of the project rests with the project leader. Once you get clear on the accountability and the authority in the project, most of your frustration should disappear.”

We have a formal holiday in the USA this time of year, to give thanks for the opportunities and people in our lives.

And so, I want to thank each of you for the opportunity to come into your busy day, at least for a few moments, to stir the pot, rearrange some things in your head. I started this blog in November 2004, so by my count, that makes 20 years. I thought that ten years would be a milestone, never thought that 20 was possible. And I have you to thank. Some ask, how do you keep doing this? The real question is, how could I stop?

I think it’s time for a beer. Happy Thanksgiving, November 2024. -Tom

“You are right,” Riley admitted. “Our record sales this year depended on one non-recurring project. But, don’t you think we will get lucky next year and get another project like that?”

“Maybe so, maybe not,” I replied. “But can you relax and depend on luck? I worked with a company that increased its prices an average of ten percent, and then were so proud that revenues were up seven percent. They didn’t count the trend in units sold. A bit of self-delusion at the celebration party.”

“But, we still have record sales this year.”

“No, you had one record sale this year,” I nodded. “In the immortal words of Abe Lemmon, you scored one more point than a dead man.”

From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:

My boss feels I am very good at my work, but that I don’t take responsibility. I tried to ask him what he means by that. He said that I have to be told every time what I must do. So, I tried to do things on my own initiative, but then he questions me “who told you to do this?” Most of the time when I ask about something I think I should do, he says “no” and asks me to do something else. How do I impress my boss that I am a person who takes responsibility or is at least willing to take responsibility?

Response:

Your attitude and willingness are in the right place, so let’s make one small change. I want you to ask your boss to meet with you to plan out your work for an entire day. I want you to create a checklist on paper and then work the checklist. The problem is not responsibility. You appear to be a responsible person.

The problem is time span. You appear to work on a single task at a time and then return to your boss for more direction. I want you to lengthen the time span by creating a checklist with a sequence of tasks for the entire day.

At the end of the day, you will be able to show him the checklist and what items you have completed. That will be evidence that you are, indeed, a responsible person.

The key is time span.

What is the relationship between two people who are required to work together? Organizational structure is the way we define that working relationship with respect to accountability and authority. And, there are two types. One vertical and one horizontal.

Vertical relationships, we understand pretty easily. These are managerial relationships, with a manager and a team member. Between the two, accountability and authority are assumptive. The manager has the authority to determine what work needs to be done, how that work is done, how its output will be measured (pace and quality). The manager has the authority to make decisions and solve problems, simultaneous with the accountability for that output.

This is not a power dynamic based on a power hierarchy. This is a competence dynamic based on a competence hierarchy. It is the intelligent manager, with the authority to make decisions, who has the accountability to determine all the variables around that decision. That includes data collection, asking questions and listening to feedback from the team. Woe is the manager who fails to consider these variables in the face of a decision. For it is the manager who will be held to account for the consequences of that decision.

That’s how competence hierarchies work.