Jim's Most Recent Articles

Relentless Accountability, Part 1

  

  

 delicious  

  

A topic on which I’ve focused extensively in my writing and speaking—and one that is certainly popular with readers and audience members—is accountability. Most of us will readily concede that accountability is a characteristic we admire in others and try to express in our own lives. If you’re anything like me, you’ll also concede that accountability can be a tough standard to meet.

I’ll start by sharing my working definition of accountability. It goes like this:

Accountability is acknowledged ownership of the choices we make
And the consequences of those choices.

As you can see, I place emphasis on “acknowledged”. True accountability includes the willingness to acknowledge the source (ownership) of the choices we make, the relationship between those choices and their consequences, and the source (ownership) of the consequences. While there can be no misunderstanding about who owns the choices I make and the consequences of those choices, acknowledging that ownership seems to be a situational phenomenon. When the consequences are good, I’m eager to acknowledge my ownership of the choices that produced them. However, when the consequences are not so good, I may respond by pointing out all the other people and the circumstances that mitigated against better outcomes.

In my work and in my life, I have not gone far enough in my treatment of accountability. I am convinced that I make far more choices than I’ve been willing to acknowledge and that the consequences of those choices are powerful, even if my choices were made unconsciously. But if those choices are made unconsciously, how am I to know what they were? Ah, there’s the beauty of the relationship between choice & consequences. Even unconscious choices produce consequences. In fact, I’m starting to believe that the unconscious choices produce consequences that are quite discernible, ones that dramatically impact the quality of our lives.

Here’s one of the premises I’ve come up with related to accountability. Take a look at it and see if it makes sense to you:

The circumstances in our lives will always have some impact on us.
The choices we make about those circumstances
Will have more impact on us (prove more powerful)
Than the circumstances themselves.

OK, let’s be perfectly honest with ourselves, some of the people, situations, events, behaviors—the circumstances—we encounter are not pleasant. Outside factors have some impact on us, and some of those factors and their impact are negative.

However, the factors and their impacts are not where the story ends; they’re only the beginning. Contrary to popular myth, we are not helpless victims of the outside factors we encounter. We are actually the creators of the dramas that evolve from these triggering factors. In order to take accountability from compelling buzzword to practice, we must be relentless in our commitment to acknowledging and improving the choices we make.

As you can see, this is a topic that can’t be adequately addressed in one article. So stay tuned, because I will continue with this series of articles, not on accountability, but on Relentless Accountability.

Culture, Leadership & Teamwork

  

  

 delicious  

  

Diversity. Now there’s a word that describes my work and the clients I serve. Happily, I enjoy the absence of routine — that might be my reaction to my six years in the Marine Corps. Talk about your routines…

Over the past 17 years I’ve facilitated planning sessions for business executives, health-care professionals, association boards and executives, professional educators and just about any other type group you can think of. As diverse as the groups and participants were, there have been many similarities.

Each group was working to develop agendas for change, and the participants in each group held leadership positions in their organizations. Members of each group recognized the relationship between their organizations’ cultures and their prospects for achieving their objectives. Most participants seemed to appreciate the potential impact of their leadership behavior on those cultures.

I am absolutely convinced that leadership behavior drives organizational cultures and that certain cultural characteristics contribute significantly to organizational success. If you’re creating a culture that encourages and supports participation in the search for better ways, that culture should be Change-Friendly.

A Change-Friendly culture is one in which “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” has been discarded in favor of, “If we haven’t found a better way, it’s only because we haven’t looked”. In Change-Friendly cultures, people are willing to consider and try alternatives to the status quo because people in leadership positions encourage them to do so and support them in their efforts. In those organizations all parties are encouraged to continuously seek out, find and try better ways of doing business — to play to win. While there is much being written and said about such cultures, they are still the exception rather than the rule. The leadership behavior necessary to create and sustain such cultures is the missing ingredient.

Managers and others in leadership positions may outwardly encourage staff to experiment, to consider and try creative alternatives, but what too many of them mean is that those alternatives better not gore any of their “sacred cows”. A classic mixed signal by leaders is the disparity between what they say — “Look for better ways” — and what they do — place unreasonable limitations on what’s “in play” or give only lukewarm support to staff members’ ideas and efforts.

One inevitable consequence of heavy experimentation is an increase in the number of setbacks. People who are playing to win (taking risks, trying new techniques or even activities) will make more mistakes than the people who are hunkered down and playing not to lose. The choices leaders make about those setbacks, their behavior in response to mistakes, will serve to reinforce or cancel out the things they’ve said. If leaders encourage staff to experiment and then explode when they make mistakes, their behavior effectively cancels out their words. Where leadership is concerned, behavior “trumps” words.

Should managers accept and adopt every suggestion that staff members make? Of course not, but their willingness to consider staff suggestions, and their behavioral responses to the inevitable mistakes that come with experimentation, are the factors staff members use to determine if their culture is — or isn’t — Change-Friendly.