Driving a Culture of Accountability and Responsibility
Photo by Lars Plougmann
The behaviors organization accept are generally baked into their corporate culture. Accountability is no exception. The cues we get from the company leadership, our direct manager, and our peers formulate how we think about these behaviors. Although often quite subtle, these cues help us understand the importance of accountability in our own organizations.
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Companies get the behaviors that they model into their culture. Many organizations don’t take the time to think about the cues their policies and rewarded actions give to their employees. I’ve always been puzzled why the dive and catch is so celebrated in the corporate world. A company I worked at actually had a Fire Fighter Award, which perpetuated that saving the day was to be “rewarded” rather than preparedness and proper planning. Bob Sutton has written on this topic before (see Your Lack of Planning is Not My Emergency) and had a strong response from most people.
Netflix’s presentation on Freedom & Responsibility Culture recently made the rounds. It contains many references to empowerment, hiring practices, and adherence to behaviors and values, which are all great concepts. It makes sense and I would love to see how it actually plays out in day-to-day work, but it’s not enough.
Along with sending a message of accountability throughout corporate culture, people need to have a strong and positive relationship with their direct manager and an inherent trust in the organization in order to feel accountable for their results. You need to feel that your relationship to your employer is “reciprocal” for the building the blocks of accountability to fall into place. Mihnea C. Moldoveanu writes much more about this in his Harvard Business Review Article, The Promise: The Basic Building Blocks of Accountability.
Some guidelines on how to promote accountability and responsibility in your organization:
- Leaders must model accountability. This includes taking accountability for mistakes and giving credit where credit is due.
- Do not create silly policies in your organization. Most of the people do the right thing most of the time.
- Communicate and share information. It hard for people to feel accountable if they do not understand what is happening in the organization.
- Create a safe learning environment. People need to not be afraid to give feedback and share mistakes or missteps. This is how people learn.
- Focus on the relationship managers have with their teams. Create systems, tools and training that help managers develop better relationships. This is the foundation for driving accountability in the organization.
