Mastering Accountability
Ujima Donalson, POD Director

As I wrote in the first article of our two-part series on accountability, many of us struggle with holding people accountable and tend to think of accountability as punitive (which is, perhaps, one reason we shy away from it in the first place). However, the authors of Crucial Accountability: Tools for Resolving Violated Expectations, Broken Commitments, and Bad Behavior take a much different stance; in their view, managers who hold employees accountable are "facilitators, enablers, and supporters." For leaders to shift to this more constructive approach to accountability, they must learn the keys to having a successful accountability conversation and master the principles of accountability.


Accountability is a Conversation, Not an Accusation

When it comes down to it, having an accountability conversation with a colleague or employee is really about problem-solving. Crucial Accountability makes the case that people are influenced by complex factors and that "admitting that a problem might stem from several different sources will change our whole approach." By taking this approach to accountability conversations, "we're curious instead of boiling mad. We feel the need to gather more data rather than charge in 'guns a-blazin'. We move from judge, jury, and executioner to curious participant."

This curious and constructive approach is key because your objective is to open things up so that a problem can be solved—not shut things down by putting the other person on the offensive or defensive. Both you and the other party should have at least some willingness to engage because you both have a stake in the future of the relationship. You can make the most of that willingness by following the three steps advised in Crucial Accountability to kick off the accountability conversation:

  1. "Describe the gap" (the difference between what you expected and what you observed).
  2. Tentatively share your own conclusion based on the facts you know.
  3. Follow up with a question to elicit the other person's perspective or version of events.

This three-step intro could sound something like this: "I thought we'd agreed that you would send the data I'd requested by Friday, February 13, but I didn't receive it from you until almost a week later. I know you were going out of town over the holiday weekend, and I suspect that you may have been scrambling to get all your stuff done since you were taking that Friday off. Is that what happened, or did we not have the same understanding about the deadline? Or is there something else altogether that I should know about?"

As the authors explain, "by taking the attitude that you could be wrong and using tentative language, you're being fair." Your attempt at fairness—if genuine—will lay the groundwork for an open and productive exchange. In addition, the open-ended question of the third step follows what I've always considered to be one of the most valuable of Stephen Covey's seven habits—seek first to understand—and will help keep you in a curious mindset.

Bear in mind that even with the three-step intro outlined above, an accountability conversation is unlikely to be linear and orderly. The intro is simply your opening pitch, and you shouldn't try to control where the conversation might lead after that. Instead, you should be prepared for some creative problem-solving, which means being comfortable with things being a little messy in order to, ultimately, get things right.

Getting to the Root of the Problem

After those initial three steps, the true dialogue begins. Crucial Accountability identifies numerous factors that people are influenced by, and those fall into two broad categories: motivation or ability. It's your job to guide the conversation to jointly explore the root causes of the problem. Is it a motivation problem, an ability problem, or a hybrid? Keep in mind that "…motivation and ability are linked at the hip… If something is hard to do—perhaps noxious and boring—it's demotivating."

Along with motivation, another essential facet of an accountability conversation is consequence. Just as you'll need to work on uncovering the various motivating factors at play, you'll need to dig deep to find consequences that resonate with the other person.

Consequences provide the force behind all behavioral choices, and so savvy influencers motivate others by completing a consequence search: they explain natural consequences until they hit upon one or more that the other person values.

Your employee or colleague may not care that, since they were late in submitting the data to you, you had to work late one night to finish the report. They may not even care that, consequently, you had to reschedule your anniversary dinner with your spouse. And that your spouse then contracted the stomach flu and could not enjoy the rescheduled dinner. Your employee or colleague may care about all of those things—or what they might really care about is the fact that their tardiness in turn caused your unit's monthly report to be late to the department's director, which in turn made it difficult for the director to meet a related deadline.

It's your job to find the consequences that are meaningful to another person. Once you do that, you can tie those consequences back to the initial gap (the missed deadline, unmet expectation, skipped meeting, etc.) and then direct things to the next time. As Crucial Accountability advises, "Remember the all-important question: 'What do you think it will take?'"

Discovering root causes is essential, as is finding out what consequences resonate, but most likely you're not going to be able to completely erase or rectify what happened in the past. The biggest take-away from your accountability conversation should be understanding what needs to change so that the problem doesn't happen again. Another benefit of a well-executed accountability conversation is building trust. If you're seen as reasonable and empathetic, it's more likely people will approach you when they're struggling—which, in turn, will help put you out in front of problems, rather than on the back end.

Mastering Accountability

The authors of Crucial Accountability studied leaders in numerous organizations and found some accountability experts who—despite differences in personality, gender, seniority, industry, etc.—shared common traits. These accountability experts:

Perhaps just as important is what these accountability experts don't do. According to Crucial Accountability:

At the heart of our twisted view of how to motivate others lies an accumulation of outdated methods and tortured thoughts, one piled upon another. We come to believe that good leaders propel people to action by blending two parts charisma, one part chutzpah, and a healthy dash of fear into a perfect motivational cocktail. And we're wrong.

In short, the authors of Crucial Accountability advise leaders not to rely on charisma, power, or perks. Your own experience may have shown you that each of these has limited effectiveness; in addition, each comes with baggage that leaders don't need. Using your charisma, for instance, won't work with all people or at all times. In addition, leaders who rely on that tactic give the impression that their charm or popularity is the best they have to offer. In the long run, their employees may see their cult of personality as a weak substitute for leadership.

As far as power, "for over five decades, scholars have shown that abusive leadership styles don't succeed over the long haul, and over the short haul they're simply immoral." Moreover, leaders who become verbally or emotionally abusive give up the moral high ground. Once leaders give that up, it doesn't matter how right, in theory or in principle, they are—their cause will have been lost. Even non-abusive uses of power should be avoided.

When we quickly move to use force to influence change, people intuitively understand that we do that because we believe they have bad motives. We don't respect them. In addition, it communicates that we only care about our goals, not theirs. In other words, it destroys safety.

In regard to perks, the Crucial Accountability authors explain that "when extrinsic rewards are applied to routine behavior, they confuse purpose. Special rewards should be reserved for special performance." As much as we may want to dangle a carrot to encourage performance, this is not a sound strategy for the long-term.

So, if it's not about employing your personality, power, or perks, what does mastering accountability come down to? It's about being human—and humane. It's about understanding that people are people and are motivated by complex factors, and it's about listening, reserving judgment, and showing compassion.

This passage from Crucial Accountability may well-deserve to be pinned to every leaders' wall:

If you want greater influence with a powerful and defensive person, what you typically need is not more power but more empathy. What you need is not a bigger hammer but a bigger heart. If you can step away from yourself and consider how the problem behavior is affecting the other person as well as how it's affecting you, you'll have a greater capacity to produce better outcomes for both of you.
Winter 2015 | Return to issue home