This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Oz Principle" by Roger Connors, Tom Smith, and Craig Hickman. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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Does your team have accountability issues? How can a lack of accountability harm your business in the long run?
Not every leader understands nor is willing to hold their people accountable for their actions or lack thereof. As a result, many organizations run into harmful issues which require time, resources, and change to resolve—but to leave them unresolved is to ensure that your company never achieves its full potential.
There are three issues that stem from a lack of accountability: employee development, communication, and individual motivation. Learn more about each one below.
1. Employee Development
For the organization to grow, your people have to grow. Sometimes that growth can happen organically—often, though, it comes only as the result of deliberate effort.
Problem: Many companies don’t invest time and resources in developing their employees’ skills. In turn, employees do the bare minimum because they’re not motivated to improve and their progress is not being monitored.
Accountability Solution: In an accountability culture, it’s on leaders to provide feedback. Then, it’s on the employees to act on it. In addition, individuals must hold themselves accountable by finding ways to grow their own skills, take on more responsibility, and improve by monitoring their results. The organization and the individual must meet in the middle.
(Shortform note: A Harvard Business Review article notes that in addition to providing motivation, the right kind of employee development is critical to retention. Providing effective development programs entails: conducting one-on-one meetings to learn about the needs of your employees, creating hands-on learning opportunities, and giving feedback.)
2. Communication
Poor communication is at the root of many problems. And communication issues can take many forms. Sometimes people aren’t accessible to each other. Sometimes they don’t ask the right questions, or they don’t really listen to what other people have to say. Key information doesn’t get properly disseminated to everyone.
Problem: A communication failure can balloon into other issues when people within the company aren’t on the same page about their shared goals. This leads to a lack of focus and unity. And even if that lack of unity doesn’t cause immediate or obvious problems, it makes the team less effective and slows the company’s growth.
Accountability Solution: Results are key to accountability—and people can’t be accountable if everyone’s looking for different results, or doesn’t know what the ideal results are at all. Confused or directionless employees aren’t effective. It’s on leaders to make sure everyone is on the same page and communicating clearly with each other. And it’s on employees to speak up when they’re confused and to take accountability for their own role in the organization.
3. Individual Motivation
The final consequence of a lack of accountability has to do with ownership, empowerment, and taking initiative.
Problem: Employees sometimes fail to take initiative because they don’t realize they can or should. Supervisors want more proactive employees, but they fail to show them trust or give them the space to make mistakes without repercussions (within reason). It’s a vicious cycle: Managers expect their employees to earn more power and responsibilities, while employees hold themselves back because of a lack of trust from their leaders.
Accountability Solution: As an employee, show that you can be trusted by getting results. Concrete evidence of your skills and problem-solving ability is the easiest way to build yourself up in the eyes of your teammates and supervisors. As a leader, learn to be present and involved without being too controlling; give your team a chance to rise to the occasion.
(Shortform note: Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work offers empowerment steps including: Regularly ask employees how you can help them be more successful, delegate as much responsibility for decision-making as possible, improve training during onboarding, devote time and resources to continued training, encourage employees to take educated risks, ask employees how you can remove roadblocks or change restrictive policies, allow employees to cross-train and expand their skills, turn employees into coaches, and provide a range of new opportunities and allow employees to choose.)
Problem: Complacency is a related issue—people may feel so secure in their jobs that they begin to slack off because they’ve started to take it for granted. We’re all susceptible to that behavior.
Accountability Solution: Make sure everyone understands that they have to continue earning their jobs, in the same way that they continually work to maintain a relationship or keep their home in good shape. You never really stop earning your job, its benefits or perks, raises and promotions, and your place in the company.
If the company grows, you get more of the benefits; but if it goes through a rough patch, you might lose some of the perks or the job itself. So it’s in your best interest to do everything you can to make sure the company succeeds. It’s not just the boss’s responsibility—it’s everyone’s.
(Shortform note: Signs that your employees are becoming complacent include: disengagement, not asking questions or challenging themselves or others, not taking initiative, not investing in their skills and relationships or building their personal brand, taking shortcuts, playing it safe, and complaining and playing the victim.)
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Here's what you'll find in our full The Oz Principle summary :
- Why you have more power to create change than you may realize
- How to stop thinking like a victim
- The four steps to mastering accountability
