We are building a robust structure for high performance. Over the past three weeks, we have laid a foundation of vulnerability-based trust that enables the next essential behavior, productive conflict.

Through productive conflict we can create clarity and buy-in, which makes real commitment possible.

With this base of Trust, Conflict, and Commitment, the next behavior, Accountability, should be simple, right?

If only.

An Uncomfortable Idea

For many, the mere mention of holding people accountable creates palpable discomfort.

It’s no wonder. In our culture, accountability has become synonymous with blame, unwanted consequences, and even punishment.

No sane person likes to be on the receiving end of any of those things, and we generally don’t like imposing such discomfort on people we care about.

We imagine that holding our teammates accountable puts the relationships at risk, and the more we like them the harder it can be.

Ironically, the opposite is true. Failing to hold each other accountable is what threatens relationships. It allows misinterpretations and resentment to build, potentially to a breaking point.

Not only does a culture that avoids holding each other accountable weaken relationships, it encourages mediocrity, missed timelines, and wasted opportunities.

No team can perform at a high level without accountability. It is not optional for any organization that intends to achieve meaningful results.

Although we have understandable reasons to avoid holding people accountable, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Redefining Accountability

The word “accountability” itself is neutral. It just means “to give an account,” thus the job, accountant.

Accountability means asking and answering questions like:

• What decision was made, and why?
• What action was taken (or not taken)? Why or why not?
• What actually happened as a result?
• How did the result compare to expectations?
• What did we learn?
• What will we do differently going forward?

Those questions have no inherent positive or negative valence.

But the answers sure do, and that’s where the discomfort and avoidance arises.

Accountability: Easy Mode

Accountability is really easy when things go well.

I completed my task. It went great. Better than expected. We learned how smart I am. Going forward we’ll let me make all the decisions.

Nothing difficult about that conversation, facetious hubris aside. It is an account of what happened. We’re just not used to talking about accountability when things go well.

But real teams doing meaningful work are all about solving hard problems, and things often don’t go as well as we hoped.

Accountability: Hard Mode (aka Reality)

The real answers to those accountability questions—if we were willing to give them—often sound more like this:

• I didn’t get it done. I forgot. I got distracted by other tasks (because I prefer doing them). My dog ate it. Life happened.
• I decided to go with Vendor A because they had the best price and I thought they could do the job. I was wrong. They didn’t have the right experience.
• I committed to having this done today, but we’re back to square one with a new supplier and it’s going to take another month.
• Going forward, I’ll make sure vendors can provide clear examples of past projects that demonstrate their capabilities.

That’s harder. It involves admitting imperfection. It exposes us to judgments. It calls our competence into question. It requires vulnerability.

Remember that whole trust thing?

Accountability involves a willingness to ask—and answer—direct questions about what was committed versus what actually happened, and to account for the gap.

If a team can’t do this, they cannot learn, they cannot grow, and they cannot perform.

The Enemy of Accountability

When expectations are clear, and people have bought-in and explicitly committed to specific decisions and actions, accountability is relatively straightforward, even if it is still a little uncomfortable.

That’s the simple version. But it turns out, setting up the simple version is not so simple.

More often, expectations are not well-defined and buy-in is mushy at best.

What was supposed to happen? Well, we’re not sure. It was a little (or a lot) ambiguous. We never clearly defined the outcome we wanted or needed.

Ambiguity is the enemy of accountability.

Even the most fearless manager will shy away from holding people accountable for something that was never made clear or bought into in the first place. That’s not fair, and we know it. Thus the need to sort it out through productive conflict so you can gain real clarity, buy-in, and commitment.

But Uncertainty is Real!

But, Greg, aren’t you always telling us that uncertainty and ambiguity are real? And that we must accept that?

For most knowledge workers, isn’t figuring stuff out the whole point of the job? Isn’t solving problems that haven’t been solved before inherently unpredictable?

And how can you hold people accountable for something that is inherently unpredictable?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. And you can still have accountability.

When it is difficult or impossible to predict exactly what needs to be done, you can still commit to how you’re going to go about doing it.

At the simplest level, you can just explicitly state the uncertainty. “I think the best case is three weeks, but it could take up to six.”

Then when it takes twelve, there can be an accountability conversation about the failure (yes, failure—it’s okay), to make an accurate predication.

Maybe it was a one-off and it just took wildly longer than any reasonable person would expect.

Or maybe it reflects a larger pattern of inaccurate predictions, which warrants a different accountability conversation.

I see a pattern of underestimating how long things will take. How do you account for that?

Isolated instance or chronic pattern, it cannot be improved or fixed if you can’t talk about it. Accountability is largely about transparency.

When in Doubt, Zoom Out

In general, when faced with creating accountability that is compatible with our VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Chaotic, and Ambiguous) reality, the answer is to back up, zoom out, take a higher perspective.

Even when there is real uncertainty regarding the details of the work, you can still be accountable for:

• Making reasonably accurate predictions of how long things will take, even if that prediction is a wide range
• Setting clear expectations in the first place
• Providing accurate updates to your teammates
• Making decisions in a timely manner
• Noticing when you’re stuck and getting yourself unstuck
• Learning from mistakes
• Following an agreed-upon process (which we know may or may not produce the desired results, because… uncertainty)
• Adhering to behavioral norms (like being vulnerable and trusting your teammates, engaging in productive conflict, committing to a course of action even if you didn’t agree, and being willing to be held accountable)

The Role of the Leader

Paradoxically, when it comes to accountability, the role of the leader is to make sure they are not the one holding people accountable.

A strong leader can unintentionally create an accountability vacuum in their organization, where everyone silently assumes (hopes) the leader is going to handle all accountability issues (because they usually do).

This simply doesn’t work.

Instead, leaders must demand that their teams hold each other accountable.

They must, of course, be ready and willing to step in when necessary, and they must also make clear that team-level accountability does not mean consensus-seeking.

The leader’s job is to create a culture of accountability, not to be the sole source of it.

Meta-Accountability

Most of us don't love being held accountable, and I will admit, I don't always respond well.

Any query regarding the rationale behind my decisions, or the status or quality of my work tends to make me instantly defensive, at least a little—sometimes a lot.

People like me, with a strongly-inclined C-style in the DiSC® model, tend to be hyper-conscientious. That’s what the “C” is for, after all.

We go out of our way to get things right, and expend a lot of energy trying to avoid mistakes and failures, because we feel uniquely terrible when we get it wrong.

I often perceive accountability questions as danger signs. If you’re asking the question, you must think I made a mistake, and if I made a mistake I’m going to feel terrible.

No one wants to feel terrible, thus the defensiveness. Every style has their version of this driven by their own needs and priorities.

But here’s the thing: that’s my stuff, not yours.

And above all else, each of us needs to be accountable for recognizing and managing our own “stuff."

I think of this as “meta-accountability.”

We each have to be accountable for things that get in the way of our being more accountable.

Taking accountability for our own self-awareness, learning, and growth—for our own actions and reactions—is the starting point for accountability in all our other endeavors, even those that involve lots of uncertainty.

All of this is important work, because creating a culture of accountability allows teams to turn their full attention to their true purpose: achieving extraordinary Results.

That's our topic for next week. Until then,

Greg