ACCOUNTABILITY

SETTING THE CONDITIONS FOR SUCCESS

Accountability is the glue that ties commitment to results.

It is the process of clarifying expectations and holding people responsible for getting the desired results.

It involves objectively measuring outcomes against established goals, while rewarding achievement and confronting poor performance.

If you do a Google search you will find that many sources define “Accountability” in terms of assigning blame when something goes wrong, or like a parent checking up on and correcting a problem child. One well-known book (Crucial Accountability by Patterson, Grenney et al) describes it as “resolving violated expectations, broken commitments, and bad behavior.” We have a different perspective.

To be accountable means to be reliable, to take responsibility, and to meet commitments. This is behavior that produces results. To hold people accountable means to expect them to follow through, to reward them if they do and to ask for explanations and remedy the situation if they do not.

Sure, there may be times when a leader needs to confront poor performance in a forceful way, and this chapter offers tips to help you do that effectively. But in our view, a more productive mindset sees accountability as a supportive collaboration, a partnership between leader and followers, rather than a parent-child relationship, to enable people to successfully meet their commitments and goals.

Organizations succeed or fail based upon their results. As a leader, it is your job to create an environment in which everyone understands that achieving excellence is expected, and everyone gets the resources and support they need for maximum accomplishment. And just as the talent in your organization are all accountable to you, you are accountable to investors and to your Board (once you have one) to build a dynamic, successful organization. 

This chapter will help you establish procedures so that:

• responsibilities and expectations are clearly defined
• people know what is expected of them
• processes are in place to monitor progress toward achieving those goals and therefore “violated expectations and broken commitments” arise as little as possible. 

First: Be accountable to yourself

If you want people to be accountable to you and the organization, you have to first be sure that you are accountable yourself, that you take responsibility for your commitments and follow through. What are you going to commit to do, and what results are you going to deliver, in order to move things ahead?

Do you say in meetings that you will do X and Y, and then do them? Or do you let them slide? Either way – especially if you fail to follow through – people will notice. As I will remind you throughout the book, when you are the leader, people are watching you. What you do or don’t do, how you interact with others, how true you are to your word, how fair your decisions appear to be, set the tone for others’ behavior and for the organization’s culture. 

If you don’t do what you said you will do, no one will pay attention to the next goal and the consequences that you set. If you don’t take deadlines, target dates and meeting times seriously, nobody else will. So, follow through. If you lack discipline in meeting your commitments, the people who work for you will model that, and you will be a negative role model.   
 

Set goals for yourself, your team, and the organization.

Just as you will be asking your teams to set goals and monitor progress toward achieving them, you need to do the same for yourself. Goal-setting – especially writing down your goals and referring to them frequently – is a tried-and-true method of supporting achievement on a personal level as well as for organizations. (See box, “Goal Setting”) You will probably share your organizational aspirations with your team in goal-setting meetings, such things as:

• growing sales revenue 
• Increasing average revenue per user
• reducing customer acquisition costs
• reducing churn rate
• more effectively monitoring burn rate
• raising a Series B round at the highest possible valuation 
• increasing monthly recurring revenue from new sales
• increasing the accuracy of forecasts and performance in preparation for an IPO and ultimately, being profitable and going public. 
• Improve the recruiting process and in order to acquire more experienced engineers

If you are comfortable being a little self-revealing, you might also share some personal goals:

• “I aim to start all meetings on time. I realize that being late isn’t fair to others.”
• “I will try to delegate more and empower people to make decisions, rather than trying to do everything myself.”

People appreciate this kind of honesty and vulnerability; admitting that you are human doesn’t detract from your leadership ability! When people realize that you have these goals, they will help you achieve them. If you make a point of wanting to start meetings on time, they are more likely to show up rather than straggle in a few minutes late. If you say you want to delegate, someone will come to you and quietly say, “You said you wanted to delegate more responsibility. I feel I could take on the XYZ project. Please consider it.” 

Goal Setting

Goal setting is a tool that many successful executives and leaders use to maximize their effectiveness. If you are not familiar with this practice, google “goal setting” and you will be confronted by (as of today) 22,500,000 hits with titles like, “10 tips for setting goals” annd“The 4 secrets of goal setting.” Use those sources to make your own goal-setting system.

Here are a few things to keep in mind:
 

1. Divide your goals into various areas of your life, such as Personal (which might include health, learning, exercise, relationships, getting more rest, etc.) and Work/Career (delegate more, be sure to regularly communicate strategic priorities, etc.) Goals for the organization will likely require a separate list, that you may wish to develop in collaboration with others.
2. Write down your goals, and regularly check to see how you are progressing. Consider using goal setting or project management software.
3. Simplify. For each goal area (personal, health, etc. ) list 2 or 3 things you’d like to achieve in a given time-frame. If your list is too long, your chances of success diminish.
   
4. Compete with yourself. Set measurable goals and aim to meet or beat them. Even hard-to-measure goals, such as being more patient and helpful to others, can fit here: you will know when you fail to measure up and can take aim and try again.
   

Step One: Define Success, Set Clear Goals and Measurable Expectations

Setting goals and expectations and establishing measurable outcomes for each objective is the key to managing accountability. Make sure people understand the goals they are accountable for achieving, what they “own” and are responsible for. Everything flows from this. “Well begun is half done” - do this right and you’re on the road to success.

• Define what success looks like. What are we striving for? Employees and team members must understand that they are expected to deliver results, and will be held accountable for achieving – or not achieving – their goals and objectives. 
  

Clear communication is crucial. People cannot read your mind, and they don’t always see things the way you do.

Communicate expectations in clear, specific language. Team members should be able to answer the question, “What exactly am I responsible for? How will I know if I have met expectations?" And that failing to meet their commitments has consequences: “People who don’t deliver on their commitments don’t last long at this company.”

Goals should be specific, measurable and verifiable by objective standards, and time specific. Write them down. State goals in terms of desired results and the actions needed to achieve them : what you want done and when you want it.

“Sudhir is very clear with team members when communicating his expectations and assigning duties and he holds them accountable for getting results. He insists that his people set objective and realistic goals and that they strive to achieve the desired results. ”  

Use the SMART formula for your goals. They should be:

S pecific

M easurable

A ctionable

R ealistic

T ime-related

Be crystal clear about deliverables, dates, and who owns what.

Goals should be attainable but still stretch people. They should have a 70-80% chance of success.

Ask, “How will we tell if the goal is accomplished?” What milestones will have been reached? What metrics will show us whether enough progress is occurring or that performance is up to expected to standards.

Ask, “What outcomes could we agree on as a measure of success?”

Be willing to adjust and reformulate goals as the project advances and new conditions arise.

“Joanna will take as much time as necessary to ensure you understand exactly what her expectations of you are. She will then expect you to give her your very best and will not hesitate to let you know if you are not. She is very fair and will work with you if needed.”

Set Milestones 

Milestones mark important stages of achievement of a project. Setting milestones provides a way to monitor progress and track where you are in the process of taking an idea from inception through various stages of development to completion. Project milestones help everyone involved recognize and work toward specific goals. They help ensure that projects are completed and delivered on time and turn out as expected and desired.

Setting milestones is like creating a roadmap, or better, a timeline, as each step is designated with a date. Successful achievement of predefined milestones indicates that a project is on track. Failure to meet a milestone indicates that a project is not proceeding according to plan.

Milestones do not have to be only for major steps; achieving a series of minor milestones gives the team a sense of momentum and boosts confidence.

Typical milestones:

• Concept approval or approval of a design stage
• Obtaining funding
• Identifying staffing needs, hiring or assigning people for key roles
• Completion of a project phase or stage
• Product testing started/completed
• Bugs fixed
• Product operational

All projects should have at least 4 major milestones:

1. requirements complete,
2. design complete,
3. code complete and test ready,
4. product shipped/accepted/deployed.
   
   

Engage, don’t impose

Involve talent in goal-setting and creating milestones. Don’t just impose expectations. Get their understanding and input. Set expectations together, through dialogue.

Don’t micromanage. Try to establish a genuine partnership, an attitude of collaborative inquiry in setting and monitoring goals.

Avoid falling into a parent/child relationship of micromanaging – checking up on them too often or looking over their shoulder. When the leader micromanages, team members feel distrusted. Once everyone knows what is expected of them, back off and let them work. 

Micromanaging focuses on process and attempts to control it; accountability focuses on outcome and getting results.

Empower your team to succeed. You are interested in outcomes, not how people get there. Trust them to figure it out. They don’t have to do it your way in order to get good results.

“Genevieve is the exact opposite of a micro manager - which is exactly what makes her so effective. She gives a task and allows completion. She isn't so concerned about making sure it is done ‘her way’ but rather about making sure it is done. She provides responsibility to those below her which is appreciated.”


People are more motivated when they have a say in how goals are set and measured. Motivation rises when they feel that what they do matters, so remind them. Show them how their function and their team contributes to the success of the whole. Get their skin in the game. 

“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do.

We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” – Steve Jobs

SITUATIONAL LEADERSHIP

The premise of Situational Leadership is that your leadership style should be adjustable and adaptable, relative to the level of “readiness” – competence and motivation – of the people you are responsible for leading. (Some call this “tailoring your message to your target audience.”) The takeaway: it is your responsibility as the leader to figure out the leadership style that will work best for specific talent and team members.

For example, with experienced, competent people who have bought into your goals, a more supportive and laissez-faire style works well, while neophytes will likely require more support and help setting direction, identifying goals, and even figuring out tactics to achieve those goals. 

There are many variations of this theory, perhaps the most well-known coming from Ken Blanchard and Paul Hersey, who designated four main styles:

• Directing  – The leader makes the decisions, sets the objectives, directs others on what to do and how to do it, and then closely supervises. This is a very top-down approach, with mostly one-way communication, recommended for new employees or people with the lowest levels of both skill and prior experience.
• Coaching  – Rather than dictate to employees, leadership “sells” their ideas and plans, explaining and persuading, allowing for discussion and input. This is effective for people with more experience and skill, but who may lack motivation or confidence.    Supporting  – Employees have more responsibility for decision making. Leaders are available to provide direction but give more attention to feedback and support.
• Delegating – Leaders provide minimum guidance and follow-up, delegating authority to employees to make decisions and plan strategies for implementation. The more capability they demonstrate, the more autonomy you can give them. The highest level is empowerment: enabling employees to set their own work goals, make decisions, solve problems on their own, and take responsibility for the result.

“Ricardo recognizes his high performers and gives them flexibility in innovating and determining future paths for their projects and careers.”

S1 – Directing: The leader defines roles and sets goals, tells talent what tasks to do as well as how to do them. Communication is primarily top down and one directional. Effective for people with low competence.
S2 – Coaching/Selling: For people with greater competence than S1, the leader serves as motivator and coach.
S3 – Supporting/Facilitating: A more collaborative relationship in which leader and followers share in decision making. Employees are more competent and aligned, but leader may still need to provide motivation or coach some skills.

S4 -  Delegating: Competent and motivated talent now need little direction or support from leaders, who can delegate tasks and stand back and let talent run with the ball.

Could conclude at the bottom, “Leaders need as many people as possible who are in the bottom left quadrant: self-starting, capable, competent.” 

Step Two: Coach, Develop, and Support

One of the defining characteristics of entrepreneurs is that they have a high need for autonomy and independence. They are often non-conformists who do not like to be controlled or told what to do. As a result, when they take on a role as leaders – often their first time managing anything – they may fail to provide sufficient clarity about purpose and goals to their direct reports. But not everyone is an independent self-starter like they are. One of their lessons is to recognize that both individuals and the organization as a whole need the direction and support that only they, as the leader, can provide.


The amount of direction and support will vary, depending on how experienced and competent a person is. A more capable and experienced person needs less of your attention than someone who is new to the job or to the organization. (See Situational Leadership image below)

 The ideal is to have employees who are competent and self-directed. But even someone who is knowledgeable may lack motivation, and your job then becomes to light a fire under them, giving support and encouragement.

The main question you need to ask yourself is, How can I ensure that they have the best chance to achieve the goals we have set together? This is the underlying attitude that will make the collaboration effective and set people up for success.  

• Provide the Resources Needed for Success. Needed resources may include
• More team members with experience and domain expertise
• Funding necessary to get the job done
• Information that will enable them to make good decisions and set the right priorities
• Connections who can help, support, and mentor them
•  Invest in training and developing the skills critical to achieving your strategic objectives
• Make sure people are prepared to do the tasks assigned to them. Provide training where it is needed.
• Don’t assume people will always figure it out on their own.
• Successful leaders and their organizations are adept at setting goals and then helping employees attain those goals through training, coaching, and doing whatever it takes to move forward. Setting goals and then throwing people in the deep end of the pool with the hope that they will swim rather than sink – that they will figure it out and come through with results – is not an effective strategy. 
  
• Make sure you have the right people – in the right roles
• Is current talent capable not only of meeting present demands, but also scaling, growing the organization? If you see that some people are over their heads as growth and success transform the company, you may need to make some changes in personnel.
• This is especially true if you do not have time to coach, train, and develop the people you have. Coaching everyone is not feasible, nor is it necessarily in the organization’s best interest, especially if the timeline is short.
• Letting people go can be difficult for you if someone has been loyal and hard-working, perhaps part of the original team, yet is now struggling to keep up. Possible solution:  See if you can retain the person, but move him/her to a position better fitted to their capabilities, or bring in a more experienced person, from whom they can learn.
• In addition to the right people, you need enough people. You may have one engineer developing a product or feature, but to get it out the door in the time frame you have set, you may need three.
   
  
• Determine and allocate the financial resources that are needed
• How are you going to pay for those additional engineers? (Or whatever else you need.) Obviously, budgets are a constraining factor. If the project is critical, you may need to find resources elsewhere, such as moving somebody off a non-critical project.  

Step Three: Monitor

Monitoring progress is a vital part of accountability. As the leader, you need to set clear, measurable goals, get the process of achieving those goals started, keep it moving along, and regularly monitor progress. Establish not only a final goal, but interim objectives to mark successful, partial progress.

Consider using OKR software to help set, align, and track progress, which can be very helpful in clarifying desired results, setting up timelines and delivery dates, and tracking progress. We’ll talk about OKRs more fully later in the chapter. Check in periodically, both in an informal way and through the objective measures and metrics you have established, to ensure that things are progressing, and be there to help if people are encountering difficulty. This does not mean interfering or micromanaging.

Tips for effective monitoring:  

• It is important to formally and informally review plans and progress. Set up regular meetings as a routine. Tip: Don’t only call meetings when there are problems.
• If you feel it would be helpful, have employees send you progress reports at specified intervals. (See below)
• Set up metrics and objective measures of success and progress. Establish benchmarks. Without data, how will you measure progress? 
• Use tools such as OKR software to determine whether people are hitting the performance targets they have been assigned or have agreed to meet. 
• Establish the expectation that you want to hear about problems before they become serious.
• Create an atmosphere of trust, in which people feel you are there not to judge them but to help them be successful. Then they will not be afraid to come to the boss for help when they become stuck. Otherwise people may hide the difficulties they are encountering.
  

Important:  If problems are not brought up, and the employee continues to be stuck, the leader may become frustrated because expected results are not coming. This may erupt as anger and/or overly aggressive, combative, confrontational behavior. Try to avoid this, by building trusting relationships and encouraging people to bring up problems while they are still minor, rather than letting them grow.  On the other hand, a little “tough love” may sometimes be needed to help the person wake up to his/her responsibilities and get back in focus.

Progress Reports

Progress reports on ongoing projects, made accessible to all stakeholders, can provide continuing, transparent assessments of the project’s status. They are helpful for those directly involved in the project, for you as the leader, and for interested stakeholders who do not have ready access to the project or team.

One of the great benefits of progress reports is that they help to identify problems and risks early, so course corrections can be made in a timely way.

Written reports require some time for reflection and formulating ideas in more depth and detail than a verbal check-in, so we recommend them. Progress reports are not necessary in all cases, but If you feel you’d like to receive reports to be sure the goals you set are being met:
 

• Establish a schedule for reports to be submitted
• You may need to help design the format of the progress report and what it should include
• Designing the report will take a little time, but once it’s done, subsequent reports will just be about filling in the needed information
• If deadlines are missed, ask for an explanation of why, and how the individual or team plans to correct the situation

A typical Progress Report might include some or all of these topics:
 

1. Key owners or project manager of each deliverable
2. Project scope (example: one-year project involving 5 departments and $14 million) 
3. Brief verbal summary including
4. Current project status including percentage completed
5. Major deliverables completed
6. Milestones reached
7. Key priorities for the upcoming week/month 
8. Is the project on time and on budget? 
9. Important decisions needed 
10. Project performance rating: red, yellow, or green
11. Green = on target (project deliverables are on track and delivery is on target for projected date)
12. Yellow = at risk (project is X percentage complete and in X phase] 
13. Red = off-track (project is delayed) 
14. Key Milestones: milestones scheduled for achievement since the last report, and performance against those milestones
15. Review: What is the impact of achievement or non-achievement of key milestones for the previous period?
16. Budget: planned expenditure, actual expenditure, surplus, problems
17. Timing: original planned completion date, current planned completion date, actual completion date (for a completed project)
18. Brief summary of key accomplishments for the last period
19. Important risks for next period?
20. Additional issues

• When a problem comes to your attention, try to understand what has happened. 
• Did the person know and understand what was expected? 
• Did you communicate expectations clearly? 
• Did they have an effective plan of action? 
• Did they diagnose the problem accurately? 
• Did they exercise good judgment? 
• Did they not have the skill to solve the problem?

 
Help them analyze and understand the difficulty, but in most cases, you are not the person responsible for solving the problem, you are there to help and to brainstorm with them.

• Organize a skip-level meeting.

If you feel the need for a broader perspective on issues within the organization, you might schedule a “skip-level” meeting, where you meet one on one with the people directly involved in a project, for example the engineers rather than just the head of engineering. Leaders sometimes get isolated from the “grass roots” level of activity, especially in bigger companies, and this is never healthy.
  Skip-level meetings should be seen as a common, generic phenomenon, so managers don’t feel they are being singled out to be checked up on. It is okay for them to sometimes attend these meetings, but you need to tell them, “Sometimes it’s important for you not to be there, so people feel free to speak their minds.” (See image, Questions to Ask at a Skip-level Meeting)