jen briggs

I see accountability as one’s condition of responsibility.  We often could swap the word responsible for accountable. When we hear people saying, “they need to be held accountable” what they typically mean is they need to see the person to accept responsibility and in some cases face consequences. To be clear, there are always consequences – deliberately facilitated and pointed or the natural consequences that can sometimes be missed or shifted away from the personal context.

To have a culture (the pattern of attitudes and actions) of accountability the system must be designed to allow it. Accountability cultures and systems are best operated from strong values. Values may be broad and there is a strong fellowship of peer support, onboarding, mentoring and norming. Employee handbooks in accountability cultures start by setting the tone for the company but stop short of being a rule book. They are guidebooks. People coach, teach, and support others as they learn the system. Management and HR in these settings are more likely to have a servant leadership approach and look at the context of any issues that arise. Rules, when necessary, are designed to address truly frequent matters and not the incidental 10%. There is a system of expectations and commitments made by individuals to support the best interest of the business. Freedom and autonomy develop from unity and alignment over time.

Compliance cultures and systems are rules based. There is typically a detailed employee handbook illustrating rules and consequences. These work settings can be highly regimented and directed. People look to the rulebook, often report and blame and intensely watch for consistency in consequences. These cultures can inadvertently become fear-based cultures if not managed with precision. Focus can become on what is legal vs. what is best or most ethical.  High process cultures can verge on compliance cultures. Process in most businesses is essential, but process for the sake of process or process to force obedience should be reconsidered. The process should support the business plan and overall high-quality products or intellectual property.

Laissez-faire cultures may be more casual, but simply giving people freedom and autonomy to do whatever they want is not an accountability culture. Laissez-faire cultures can inadvertently have subcultures that run counter to the desired culture. Like-mindedness can become unproductive bias leading to us vs. them attitudes or worse. Leaders should never abdicate leadership, but cherish their duty to lead individuals and teams to great work. They help weave together the like-minded understanding and living of values, purpose, mission and the collective accomplishment of the business plan. They sweat the small stuff by helping focus small activities in an intentional way. Every action sends a message.

I believe there are far more benefits to a culture of accountability. Employees have the freedom to perform and are regularly coached to develop their organizational citizenship and critical thinking abilities. Taking responsibly for one’s mistakes, correcting and reconciling is common. These businesses often have more transparency to enable people to make decisions about their next-best action. However, it should not be mistaken that accountability cultures are less disciplined or rigorous. I would argue that the best ones are more rigorous than compliance cultures. After all, you don’t have a rulebook as a crutch. You can’t blame a decision on the rules. Logic, objective perspectives, and reason prevail. Training and development is typically valued and consequences are more obvious due to the self-leadership that ensues.  It’s all you – your thinking, attitude, actions, and results. People produce and win for the common unity of success vs. being forced to comply to do so.

What culture are you trying to construct? Every day is a chance to change.

Reflection Questions:

What tone does your employee handbook set?

Are your company personality, style and culture aligned? Do you want “an engaged workforce” yet have a very rigorous rule set?

Are your managers able to support, coach and direct within the context of their function, the big-picture view of the corporation and with the complexity of human behavior and organizational psychology?

When someone says, “we should have a policy about that”, do you respond by saying we will focus policy on the 90% of things that are likely to happen vs. the 10% of things that rarely occur?

Do your leaders have high self-value and see developing others as an asset to the long-term success of the company?

Do people continually follow a process out of habit or routine or are processes under continual assessment and improvement to ensure they are serving the production of great work?