Top companies already use detailed performance metrics (Analytics), benchmarks and individual quantitative performance measures. Yet, accountability continues to invoke fear and trembling in the minds of many managers and staff members. One reason that performance ratings are so threatening is that internal performance reviews are often done so badly. Managers frequently see them as bureaucratic exercises to check off the boxes for salary purposes. Accountability is often thought of as a way to justify blame, pass the buck or cover your butt (CYA). Phases such as, “Not my job,” and “Good enough for government work” serve to reinforce inaction and continued failure. Ask people how work is going and you are likely to hear something like “Same shi*, different day” (SSDD). A lack of accountability has destroyed job fulfillment and pride in work.
A lack of accountability allows individuals to justify entitlement thinking, such as, “I have been here longer than anyone else; I should be next in line for promotion.” Fear is a major impediment to individual and organizational success. Howard Lewis, author of Technological Risk, contends that we have become a risk-adverse culture. This is completely understandable when one considers how much we are pelted by frightening media reports, homeland security alerts, economic crises and “lite” wars (similar to lite beer with reduced calories, lite wars have reduced casualties). Lewis contends that we have become afraid of risk and that fear, more than anything else, impedes a nation’s progress. Nothing weakens an individual’s or an organization’s resolve more, than the rejection of accountability. Accepting accountability empowers us.
Twenty years ago Intel was the leading manufacturer of memory chips. Yet, the writing was on the wall. Intel would lose the chip market to cheaper, more nimble Asian competitors. That business model no longer worked in the new globalized market place. CEO Andy Grove was accountable to shareholders and employees for sustaining Intel’s success. Grove took action and replaced Intel’s old business. Intel focused all its resources from making memory chips to making microprocessors. The rest, as they say, is history. Andy Grove’s decisiveness put Intel on a new trajectory of success that continues today.
A great definition of accountability can be found in the Wall Street Best seller The OZ Principle. The authors Roger Connors, Tom Smith and Craig Hickman define accountability this way, “A personal choice to rise above one’s circumstances and demonstrate the ownership necessary for achieving desired results.” Accountability is the first step to ownership. It is understandable why all high-performing organizations build a culture of achievement by increasing employee accountability and empowerment.
A lack of accountability allows individuals to justify entitlement thinking, such as, “I have been here longer than anyone else; I should be next in line for promotion.” Fear is a major impediment to individual and organizational success. Howard Lewis, author of Technological Risk, contends that we have become a risk-adverse culture. This is completely understandable when one considers how much we are pelted by frightening media reports, homeland security alerts, economic crises and “lite” wars (similar to lite beer with reduced calories, lite wars have reduced casualties). Lewis contends that we have become afraid of risk and that fear, more than anything else, impedes a nation’s progress. Nothing weakens an individual’s or an organization’s resolve more, than the rejection of accountability. Accepting accountability empowers us.
Twenty years ago Intel was the leading manufacturer of memory chips. Yet, the writing was on the wall. Intel would lose the chip market to cheaper, more nimble Asian competitors. That business model no longer worked in the new globalized market place. CEO Andy Grove was accountable to shareholders and employees for sustaining Intel’s success. Grove took action and replaced Intel’s old business. Intel focused all its resources from making memory chips to making microprocessors. The rest, as they say, is history. Andy Grove’s decisiveness put Intel on a new trajectory of success that continues today.
A great definition of accountability can be found in the Wall Street Best seller The OZ Principle. The authors Roger Connors, Tom Smith and Craig Hickman define accountability this way, “A personal choice to rise above one’s circumstances and demonstrate the ownership necessary for achieving desired results.” Accountability is the first step to ownership. It is understandable why all high-performing organizations build a culture of achievement by increasing employee accountability and empowerment.
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