What You Create Accountability For Is What You Get

The Results: Finished No. 1 in company in contest, went from 89 out of 94 districts in sales percentage to the top 3!

The Story: Suzanne Volle works for Dress Barn, a leading national women's fashion apparel and accessories retailer that is organized into about 100 districts with stores located throughout the United States and an organization that implemented both the Self Track^™ Training and the Culture Track^™ Training. Sue is a District Manager and considered herself the typical manager at her level. Her 10 stores never really shined, but they also were never at the very bottom of the pack in terms of same-store sales. However, her company was looking to improve performance, so they ranked their managers into two groups: "renters" and "owners." Sue met with her Regional Manager and was told that she was seen as a "renter." That is, she was not seen as someone who was invested in getting the results needed and was simply playing a glorified "caretaker" role with her district.

When Sue heard how she was seen, she was devastated. She had been with the company 12 years at that point and was looking to advance her career. With this news, she had reached what we would call the critical point of accountability: she could either decide to get mad and go Below The Line^® into what we call the victim cycle or the blame game, or she could choose to get Above The Line^® and take accountability to change her circumstance by taking four simple steps, to See It, Own It, Solve It and Do It.^® The difference between being Above or Below The Line is the difference between getting results or getting stuck. It is not wrong to go Below The Line, it's just not very productive and can become very frustrating.

Sue recalls that her boss gave her this honest feedback and told her to read the book, The Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability. She said, "It totally changed my life. For the first time, I started to 'Do It!" Sue realized that what she was getting, in terms of results, is what she was creating accountability for. So she chose to create accountability for succeeding with an annual promotion, the women's suit sale contest that runs for 4 weeks. She states, "You have to understand, we never won anything. My district has always been at the bottom. I've bought into 'it's the economy, it's the weather, people don't buy suits in our city, I can't sell suits.'" Sue decided that the result they needed to get was to win the women's suit contest. She went to work at creating accountability around the weekly VIP event held in the stores during the sale. Here, they closed the stores for two hours and allowed the invitation-only customers for shop with special discounts. Sue not only let everyone know what the desired result was, but she went on a campaign to achieve it. Her surprise visits to the stores during the VIP sales provided the forum to create personal accountability in the stores. Her visits even revealed one store manager who said they were doing the sales, but weren't.

Her clear accountability for the result her district needed to achieve helped the store managers get everyone involved. Store associates networked and invited friends to the VIP sale. Store managers came up with innovative promotions and discounts for the customers. The result: Her district finished No. 1 in the entire company in the women's suit sale! She was recognized at a leadership conference and asked to speak about the transformation that occurred. What you create accountability for is what you get!

For Sue, the payoff for taking personal accountability was impressive and lasting. Sue was ranked 89 out of 94 districts in sales percentage over the previous year. Four years later, she was ranked in the top 3! The reward: a trip to Costa Rica with some of the executives of the company. The payoff: the personal satisfaction that comes from being fully invested and successfully achieving results. She's no longer seen as a "renter," but a true "owner" that makes things happen. Applying these principles has even produced a better relationship with her father that might not have otherwise occurred.

What's more, the power of her personal example impacted a fellow district manager at work. She and this good friend used to "crab together, " having conversations that would allow them to wallow Below The Line and get stuck in the blame game, feeling the victim. What happened to her friend? In a subsequent Suit sale, her district finished No. 2 in the company!

Dress Barn went through both the Self Track Training, as well as the Culture Track Training with Partners In Leadership. The powerful example above shows the power of an individual to move Above The Line by taking personal accountability. The Culture Track helps to gain alignment and to create accountability for results.

Feedback Creates Accountable People...

The Results: Turning negative perceptions into positive ones.

The Story: To better grasp the importance of seeking and giving feedback, picture in your mind a common situation we encountered with one of our clients who implemented the Self Track^™ Training: "Betty Bingham" (camouflaged to protect Betty's privacy), a corporate staff human resources vice president of a large corporation, who has been temporarily reassigned to clean up a division's human resources policies and practices. The people in the division naturally view her as an intruder, and she assumes, after a few weeks, that all the bad press she's getting automatically comes with such bad-guy assignments. Several months later, when she thinks it's time to return to her corporate staff assignment, she learns that headquarters doesn't want her back. Worse, she receives no salary increase.

Devastated by this turn of events, Betty feels victimized and confused because she had received no direct feedback about her performance from headquarters or from the division president to whom she has been temporarily reporting. Instead of feeling sorry for herself, however, she begins seeking direct feedback from the people she's been working with over the last nine months. As she seeks and receives this input, she discovers that her clean-up methods have caused deep resentments and frustrations. For example, one vice president confided in her that he thought she did not respect others' points of view, that she did not acknowledge the previous accomplishments of the organization or her staff, and that she tended to take credit due others.

This sort of feedback can be hard to take and will drive even the best of us Below The Line.^® However, applying the principles and practices of the Self Track Training, Betty was able to use the feedback as a way to gain an awareness of how she had caused much of the bad press herself, which made it difficult for her to get the results she needed now. Armed with honest feedback and a strong sense of personal accountability, she set out to turn around the negative perceptions and win back the confidence of people in both the division and at headquarters. To her delight, more and more people began to confide in her, and she soon built a reputation as a credible and useful executive.

Before she got the feedback, she felt victimized, powerless, and unable to change things; she was truly unaware and unbelieving with respect to how others viewed her. Had she remained trapped in that resentment, she would undoubtedly have sought employment elsewhere. After the feedback, however, she could begin to make the link between how she was being seen and what she had been doing. She was able to See It^® more clearly and consequently felt more empowered to do something about her predicament. In short, she had moved herself Above The Line.^®

The Self Track Training helps people move Above The Line and take accountability for their success and their progress. The training fosters the skills and attitudes that yield a strong sense of personal empowerment that helps people overcome the obstacles they face and achieve the results they want.

Winning A Promotion and Changing the Belief

The Results: One leader goes to the brink of losing a promotion, only to change things 180° and win the job.

The Story: "Josh Tanner" (camouflaged to protect "Josh's" privacy) traveled the fast track with his former blue-chip company and had won accolades from the organization for his analytical prowess and political savvy. In four short years, he had learned how to get things done so well in a large, bureaucratic organizational structure that most everyone applauded Josh as a high-potential employee, capable of making it to the top. Josh's reputation not only spread throughout the company, but also captured the attention of headhunters always on the lookout for talented people.

It didn't take long for an executive recruiter to grab Josh's interest, with an intriguing opportunity to work for a small start-up company with enormous potential. Within a few weeks, Josh left the security of his large-company job for a smaller, albeit riskier one, where he knew he could shine even more brightly than before. He relished working in a more entrepreneurial, fast-paced environment where he could really put his analytical and political skills to the test. In fact, he saw himself almost single-handedly turning the start-up into a blue chip company as the years flew by.

Not long after Josh joined the new firm, however, he was hit with a landslide of feedback that threw him for a loop. Given his political savvy, Josh knew how to listen, but he just couldn't believe the feedback he was hearing. People at the new company weren't impressed with Josh's analytical bent and bureaucratic orientation. For several weeks, Josh denied the feedback, thinking to himself, "I've already accomplished so much in my career; I was a star in a blue chip company; people here should feel lucky to get someone with my experience; I gave up a lot to come here." Eventually, Josh learned that he would not receive the promised promotion to vice president of marketing, and worse, if his performance did not improve, he would not be with the organization much longer. This turn of events dealt a shocking blow to Josh, who simply could not believe this was happening to him. "This is worse than a bad dream," he moaned, "It's my worst nightmare!" Soon he began to mourn the loss of his fast-track career with his former company and lament the fact he had reached a dead end in his current situation.

At this point, the company's management asked us to work with Josh in an Executive Coaching Process in conjunction with the Culture Track^™ Training. Immediately after contacting him, we began coaching him to move Above The Line.^® It wasn't easy, but Josh was at least willing to acknowledge the reality that he was no longer the star in his old company, but someone who needed to improve. Still, he continued feeling victimized by the new job and other people. He told us, very convincingly, one side of the story, moving through the victim cycle with ease and familiarity as he identified each level and anxiously explained how "they" had knocked him Below The Line.^® Finally, he explained what we recognized as a wait-and-see attitude: He was hoping that time would disprove his new associates' initial assessment of him.

As we worked with Josh, it became clear that his greatest challenge lay in forging the link between his own behavior and the perceptions of his new associates. While he understood the perceptions, his unwillingness to accept their accuracy was rendering him unable to Own It.^® At this point, we asked Josh to retell his story, this time focusing on the accountable facts of his circumstances instead of just the victim facts. Slowly, he began describing how people might have misinterpreted some of the things he had done after joining the company, but after each such admission he would say something like, "But only an idiot would draw that kind of conclusion." As he continued to identify how his actions could have contributed to the perceptions of others, he gradually found it easier to recognize the things he did or did not do to contribute to his present predicament. As he did so, his anger began to abate. We explained to Josh that owning his circumstances did not mean accepting the perceptions of his new associates as total truth, but rather acknowledging a connection between his behavior and their perceptions.

Finally, when we asked him the question, "What extra steps could you have taken?" Josh stopped to reflect on how he could have started off by asking people what kind of job they thought he was doing. Recognizing the differences between his new and old environments and acknowledging that he had ignored the new culture's bias against excessive analysis and bureaucratic process, Josh finally admitted that he could have taken more care explaining to others the motives and principles behind his actions.

As Josh's sense of accountability increased, so did his feelings of liberation: "I should have worked more closely with the people and the culture of the new company to obtain their ideas and involvement in the programs I was trying to implement. I could have been more open to their suggestions, and I should have involved myself more with their plans, purposes, and priorities. Wow, did I make a mistake by withdrawing into myself when the negative feedback started coming in!" Not until that moment did Josh fully address the other side of the story and own all the facts, particularly those that linked his behavior with his circumstances. He was not saying that he should shoulder 100 percent responsibility for everything that had happened, nor was he saying that the people in the new company had given him a 100 percent fair assessment, but he was finally admitting that he himself had done, or failed to do, certain things that contributed to his circumstances. "Man," he said during our final coaching session, "Getting stuck Below The Line feels like being trapped in a room with no windows or doors. Now that the doors are open, and I see the whole story, I can start changing my circumstances. Things can only get better!" Josh came to own his circumstances when he made the connection between his behavior and the perceptions of his new associates. When he saw the reality that his past behavior had contributed to his present circumstances, he realized that his behavior from now on could create an entirely different and better future. This realization gave him the heart he needed to begin working to shift the perceptions of those with whom he worked, and, before long, he lost all the distaste he had developed for his new associates. After a little more than three months of Above The Line behavior, Josh had so completely shifted the perceptions of his subordinates, peers, and boss that he won that promotion to vice president of marketing.

Mécaniser - Performance Improvement Through Cultural Transition

The Results: C2 through Focused Feedback,^® increased performance.

The Story: "Mécaniser" (camouflaged to protect the identify of this client) a European appliance manufacturer, had been struggling against more innovative competitors. Our assessment of senior management during the Culture Track^™ Training revealed a fragmented team focused solely on their individual roles and engaged in finger pointing to justify lackluster performance. The new president, "Claude Guillaume," had come into the organization to set matters straight.

Immediately, Claude attempted to create a new experience for the team that would underscore the need for change. In management-team meetings, he openly confronted performance issues and decisively made strategic decisions. His approach created new beliefs about how the team and the organization needed to change, and things began to change quickly. In fact, Claude managed to shift Mécaniser's culture enough to generate considerable performance improvement in his first year on the team. However, progress plateaued as the company ran out of "low-hanging fruit" to harvest and found results harder and harder to achieve. Soon Claude recognized that he could not fundamentally shift the way the organization was operating without help.

That's when Claude asked us to assist the Mécaniser team via our Culture Track Training and Executive Coaching Process, in evaluating what they needed to do to change the culture and achieve the next year's plan. The plan posed a terrific challenge, signaled a moderate change in strategic direction, would require an important deployment of resources, and would necessitate the development of internal processes that did not currently exist. Although Claude and the team had made some progress, they knew that they would not be able to achieve plan without changing the culture, starting with the management team.

Claude also knew that, while he had intentionally and successfully created early experiences for the group that had won their attention, he now needed to bring the group together and forge a more effective team. They worked together to define Mécaniser's management culture and develop a Cultural Beliefs statement that captured the key beliefs the organization needed to adopt in order to achieve plan. With this clarity of cultural direction, Claude set about creating the new experiences that would support the Cultural Beliefs^® for his whole management team. After obtaining feedback about how he could more completely demonstrate the new beliefs himself, Claude identified a Type 2 experience (an experience that must be interpreted in order to form the desired beliefs) he could provide the management team: He would confront people less often and listen more attentively in order to establish a more consultative and collaborative decision-making process within the group.

As Claude shared this idea with his team, he was pleased to hear that everyone agreed that this Type 2 experience would forcefully drive the belief that "We are all in this together and we will succeed or fail as a group." While the team had always viewed him as a brilliant strategist, they had also felt that he gave them too little opportunity to participate in strategic decisions. He committed to create a stronger team approach to running the business by drawing out input during his routine meetings and sincerely seeking to understand other team members' perspectives. Claude's mere willingness to hear this feedback provided a new experience that went a long way toward convincing the team that he was serious about creating the new culture captured in the Cultural Beliefs.

The team also knew they needed to address the old belief, widely held by others throughout Mécaniser, that management did not function well as a team. Could they create a Type 2 experience for the entire organization that would begin to shift this old belief? How could they foster and promote the new belief that the management team worked collaboratively for the success of the organization? They saw this as a crucial undertaking because, to date, other Mécaniser teams always followed their lead, thus explaining the current company-wide problem with dysfunctional teams and non-collaborative decision-making.

Claude and his team determined to initiate the new experiences they would provide by sharing lunch in the employee cafeteria. In the past, rarely did any one of them go there at all, let alone together as a management team. Imagine the entire senior management team entering the cafeteria as a group and sitting together at a table to eat. Their unified appearance at lunch attracted a great deal of attention and became the story of the day. More important, to anyone watching, they looked as if they actually liked one another and enjoyed one another's company. With a few well-placed comments to the right people, the team also offered clear interpretation: "We want to work better as a team, and we want everyone to know it." The team also agreed that they needed some additional new experiences of their own. To begin, they would change the seating configuration in their staff meeting. In the past, Claude had taken the seat at the head of the table facing the team. This seating arrangement had seemed best suited to the small conference room they used for meetings, but why not move to a different room where they could sit around a table with no visible hierarchy and where they could look one another in the eye?

These new experiences, along with others, began to instill new beliefs in both the management team and the organization. Claude became a better leader, his direct reports became even more effective in their leadership and the team became a more effective team. The experiences Mécaniser's leaders created for one another led to the management-team culture described by their Cultural Beliefs and to significant progress toward achieving plan.

Taking The Gloves Off In A Nice Way...

The Results: A leader learns how to give feedback in a way that facilitates progress for himself and others.

The Story: "Bill Jones," a division director at "Opthometrics" (camouflaged per the client's company policy), learned this lesson early in the company's work with the Culture Track^™ Training. Although Bill's coworkers viewed him as someone who wholeheartedly embraced the culture change on a personal level, he was not performing in the job and delivering the desired results. His inconsistent use of the Focused Feedback^® tool hampered the pace of improvement and did not reflect his deep personal commitment to the dramatic shift in the Opthometrics culture. The problem could have gotten a lot worse if his own boss had not provided Bill with Focused Feedback. His boss told us, "Bill was always using 'pillows' when delivering constructive feedback. In listening to one conversation he had with a store manager, I heard Bill soften the feedback he gave him at least five different times, and as a result, the feedback didn't connect. After making this observation, I gave Bill the feedback, cited various examples, and showed him how it was affecting his results."

Bill's beliefs about constructive feedback needed to change. Constructive Focused Feedback should be candid, clear, and complete. It is not criticism, which simply expresses disapproval of someone's shortcomings and mistakes. Rather, constructive feedback points out what people might be doing wrong and provides suggestions as to how they might change for the better by demonstrating the Cultural Belief even more effectively. It builds rather than undermines people, with the goal of helping them succeed in becoming C2.

After receiving appreciative and constructive Focused Feedback around the Cultural Beliefs^® from his boss, Bill began to change and his performance began to improve. His boss continued, "Bill accepted the feedback I gave him without hesitation and started copying me on messages and stories where he had taken the 'pillows' off. That was ten weeks ago, and Bill has made plan eight of those ten weeks, has a fifteen-week trend over a hundred percent, and has made plan for December and January." Bill's turnaround illustrates how principles and practices of accountability presented in the Culture Track Training can bring about personal growth and positively affect results.

Accountability on The Front Lines

The Results: Front-line blue-collar workers champion the Accountability Feedback Process^TM.

The Story: LeasePlan, the world's leading fleet and vehicle leasing company, implemented the Self Track^TM Training and Executive Coaching. LeasePlan's global franchise manages around 1.3 million multi-brand vehicles and provides fleet and vehicle management services in 30 countries. Retired diesel mechanics work as part of the maintenance crew in the Chicago area. They were often viewed as "the guys who walk around with grease under their fingernails...the bearded guys who are a bit gruff." This front-line blue-collar workforce responded well to the Accountability Training,^® particularly when it came to the Accountability Feedback Process^TM process.

The Human Resource manager said that this group became the biggest advocates of taking the See It step by exchanging feedback; they were giving feedback to each other, seeking it outside of their department and they were making huge strides in modeling how focus feedback not only works peer-to-peer and superior-to-subordinate, but cross- functionally across the organization. They took it upon themselves to make sure they were able to coordinate and cooperate with all the people that were involved in making any particular lease functional and successful for the clients. This was a surprisingly positive unexpected response to the training impact that on one anticipated.

David G. Dahm, CEO of Lease Plan USA, writes: "Thank you again for a great training seminar you led with the Executive and Senior Management group of LeasePlan. There is no doubt in my mind that all of us took away a great deal of information and knowledge that we have begun to put into our daily routines.

The feedback I have received from my senior staff has been encouraging. Several of them have told me that this seminar was the best they have ever attended. We are all confident that The Oz Principle will work quite well for LeasePlan and I am looking forward to our financial results improving dramatically as we train all of our staff to embrace these principles.

I look forward to doing several follow-ups with you throughout the course of the year. I highly recommend this seminar to any company who needs to focus on accountability. At LeasePlan our culture will change to a culture of SEE IT,^® OWN IT,^® SOLVE IT,^® and DO IT.^®"

Later the next year, David G. Dahm, President/CEO, LeasePlan USA, writes: "Just wanted to follow up with you from our training that took place earlier this year. As you know, this was the second time my senior management team went through The Oz Principle and I am happy to say it is embedded in our culture here at LeasePlan. I am encouraged by the change in our daily culture as all of our staff now understands what Accountability means for LeasePlan. And the best part is, we are really growing our business profitably and our shareholders are benefiting from our growth.

As CEO, I have the opportunity each quarter to share how important these principles are to our new employees. When l share with them examples of how their colleagues have demonstrated 'See It', 'Own It', 'Solve it', 'Do It', they realize that this culture exists within LeasePlan.

I look forward to doing another follow up session with you early next year. Until then, I continue preaching the Oz Principles, but stay away from our competition."

Making The Journey Above the Line to Record Profits and Growth

The Results: One Senior Executive demonstrates the humility and personal power that turns around a leadership dilemma into a brilliant success.

The Story: Mike Eagle, CEO of IVAC Corporation at the time implemented the Culture Track^™ Training and Executive Coaching Process in his organization. We appreciate Mike (whom we rank today at the very top of those executives we know who model Above The Line^® leadership) for allowing us to share this story, because it sheds strong light on the inner struggles of executives today as they attempt to get and stay Above The Line. We share the whole story in its entirety because it is powerfully illustrative of the personal commitment it takes to get Above the Line.

Mike had racked up a string of successes in his last corporate assignment as vice president of a manufacturing facility, and his advancements had impressed the higher-ups in his corporation. Everyone above him agreed that Mike would enjoy a spectacular future, probably at the top of the corporation's executive ranks. To further his career development, his superiors proposed a move to running a subsidiary company where he could bring his talents to bear on reenergizing a poorly performing organization. As Mike approached the end of his first year managing the company, however, he was feeling frustrated at the lack of improvement in its overall performance. Nothing he had tried seemed to be working, and for the first time in his career he feared that he might fail in an assignment. With the performance issue continuing to frustrate him, Mike decided to explore the feelings of key people in the organization. During his investigation he invited one of the supervisors to lunch, where he asked for candid feedback about people's perceptions of his impact on the company over the past year. Seemingly taken back by this request, the supervisor asked Mike if he really wanted to hear the truth. When Mike insisted he did, the supervisor opened up, detailing how most people attributed lack of improvement to his own behavior. Mike couldn't believe what he was hearing.


Although shocked by this realization of people's negative feelings about his management skills, Mike expressed appreciation for the candor of those observations.
While he really did appreciate the feedback, he also found himself sorely aggravated by it. After all, when he headed up the manufacturing facility in his last job he constantly heard people complaining: "All we need is for R & D to quit throwing products over the wall before it has solved the design problems that make quality manufacturing impossible." This memory prompted Mike to chalk up the feedback as "just so many sour grapes." Why couldn't the company accept the blame for its own flaws?

The following Saturday he went biking up the California coast with a former colleague and trusted friend whom we shall call Pete Sanders. Pete had started his own business just as Mike took on his new assignment. It didn't take long after beginning the ride for Mike and Pete to start reminiscing about the good times they'd spent together over the years. As the casual conversation unfolded, Pete asked Mike how things were going, and since Mike trusted Pete, he told him that the situation had turned into a nightmare. Before long he was venting all his pent-up frustrations to his friend: "Pete, I've inherited a basket case. And it really upsets me that people expect me to do something to solve their problems. I didn't create the mess! They did. When I decided to take this position twelve months ago I had no idea what I was getting myself into. No one on the board told me how bad it really was. I'm between a rock and a hard place. Managers at every level deny responsibility, and so does corporate management.

Morale has sunk to a new low. At least three lower-level people quit every week, no matter what I do. And I've tried everything! But no one communicates with anyone else, and everyone blames everyone else for their problems. It seems like the CEO before me let things get completely out of control. The volume of new product introduction is pitiful, and the products that we do get from new product development aren't ready when we get them. I can't solve all these problems myself. I'm all alone out there. Corporate management doesn't provide any useful direction. They just assume that I'll do the right thing." For his part, Pete could not believe this was his old friend talking. Back at the plant, Mike had acted with supreme confidence, a take-charge guy who felt he could solve any problem thrown his way. Now he was sounding desperate, with his reasoning looping around in circles. He blamed the corporate management team for putting him in this untenable situation, he blamed his own senior team for not owning up to their problems, but he blamed himself for getting blindsided by a set of circumstances over which he felt no control whatsoever.

Although Pete sympathized with Mike, saying he knew there must be plenty of good reasons for why he was feeling the way he did, he also observed that continuing to feel victimized would not help him move an inch toward the results he wanted. Pete concluded, "You know, Mike, I attended an interesting accountability workshop a few weeks ago, and, based on what I learned there, I'd say you're stuck in what the workshop leaders call the victim cycle. That's the bad news. The good news is that you can do something about it."

As Pete pointed out, Mike was Below The Line,^® playing the blame game without realizing that he had indeed become part of the problem, not the solution. The solution to Mike's problem was to take accountability for reality and to use the feedback he received as a chance to turn things around. It requires a person to See It in order to start the process of positive, desired change.

As Mike and Pete rode up the coast, Pete continued his explanation: "In this workshop I learned that everyone falls into the victim cycle from time to time. It's nothing to feel ashamed about. In fact, if you can only learn to see when you're falling into it, you can start getting out of it. Victims never accomplish anything unless they start taking control over their own futures. The key is accountability, but you can't climb what they called the Steps To Accountability^® without first developing a full understanding of the victim cycle. Think about it. Have you been claiming to be unaware of certain circumstances, pretending not to know what's really going on, denying that it's your responsibility, blaming others, attempting to get someone else to take you off the hook and tell you what to do, arguing that you can't do anything, or waiting for things to get better tomorrow?"

These words seemed to strike a nerve in his friend, so Pete continued gently yet forcefully to help Mike see himself and his behavior more objectively. "Mike, I really respect you. Remember, getting stuck in the victim cycle is not bad, it's just not effective. It keeps you from getting results. Now I can see hundreds of times when I was in the victim cycle, and that's good, Mike! The more quickly I can recognize the trap, the more quickly I can get out of it and start working more productively toward my goals. The problems you face in the company are real. I saw it myself. But given those problems, try asking yourself what else you can do to rise above those circumstances and get the results you want. When you described your situation, I didn't hear many words expressing your ownership for what's happened over the past year. You talk as if the managers aren't really your managers, as if the company's problems are something you inherited, that you had no choice in the matter. Did you ever really, completely leave your old job for this new position? Have you really shown up to make it happen here?"

Mike thought about all that, and the more he thought about it, the madder he got. "You make it sound like I'm to blame for everybody else's problems. I don't buy that!" When Pete remained silent, Mike took a deep breath, then apologized for his tirade. "I'm sorry. I guess if I were totally honest with myself I would have to acknowledge that I haven't really brought my best efforts to bear on the situation. The only fun I have lately is when I think about the good old days in manufacturing. Things went so smoothly then. Improvements were so visible. It all comes back when I review the weekly update report on my old projects that I still get. I always call my old friends to congratulate them and give them advice."

At this point Pete interrupted Mike by saying, "Do you remember the story about Alexander the Great? When Alexander's army reached the coast of what is now called India, he ordered his men to burn their ships. When the men hesitated at such a shocking order, Alexander responded, 'We're either going home in their ships or we're not going home at all.' In other words, burning the ships would cement his army's commitment to conquest because retreat would cease to be an option. Now, victory could become the sole objective." Pete continued by suggesting that it looked to him as if Mike had kept a boat handy for retreat or escape and thus had never completely committed to winning his battle. When he asked Mike if that were the case, Mike confided, with a certain level of pride, that he had several escape plans. He'd already hinted to his superiors that he might like to move back to his old job, and he had even interviewed for a job with a competitor.

Now, however, he could see that he had been operating with one eye on the exit, while his situation demanded that he keep both eyes on the job at hand. Finally, he was able to see that he really was stuck in an unproductive cycle playing the victim when he should be taking decisive steps to improve conditions in the organization. Could he focus his full attention on the problem? As he did so, Mike came to realize that he needed to create a more cohesive team with his managers before any meaningful change could occur. To his regret, he had done little over the past year to foster a close team spirit between himself and the managers who reported to him. Instead, he had simply gone around the managers to the supervisors, getting together with them in early morning meetings to obtain their input and to give them direction. Mike acknowledged that he had essentially skirted his managers, and, in effect, disempowered them as a management team. Strangely enough, Mike's recognition of his own accountability for the company's poor performance no longer made him feel angry or depressed but increasingly exhilarated. Wanting to feed the feeling, Mike told Pete, "You know, I really have been getting in my own way and waiting for someone else to solve these problems. While it's true there are a lot of things that have happened that I had nothing to do with, I've allowed those things to distract me from focusing on the positive action I can take. And, worst of all, my acting like a victim has given everyone else permission to do the same. Thinking about it now, I can even see that a lot of people throughout the organization are stuck the same way, ignoring problems, denying responsibilities, and blaming others. And, as for me, I think I have let myself become so paralyzed by it all that even if I start acting differently, even if I start accepting full accountability for the company's performance, I could still fail. That scares me." Mike's realization took time and effort to accomplish. He understood that it's okay to fall into the victim cycle from time to time because it's only human to do so, and it's also okay to feel a little scared of the possibility of failure.

But the accountable person learns to overcome that fear by recognizing that success can only come from getting Above The Line and working hard to get better results. In Mike's case, his ownership became infectious, and his team rose to the occasion. With determination and some outstanding leadership, Mike led the company to record sales and profits. A couple of years into this endeavor, Mike was recognized by the president of the parent company with an award for achieving results that even they thought impossible. Mike ultimately became a member of the senior executive management team of this parent organization. The message: Sometimes you must be willing to burn all your other ships and grasp the helm of the one under your command. Doing so can stimulate the conviction and create the ownership necessary to get started on a new program of action that will help you rise above your circumstances. The shoes are on your feet. Now, all you have to do is click your heels.

With supreme confidence, a take-charge guy who felt the best senior managers not only search for ways they can improve their performance, they encourage those around them to tell them the truth, no matter how painful.

Feedback From the Loading Dock to the C-Suite...

The Results: A very accomplished CEO establishes the practice of seeking open and candid feedback from throughout the organization and translates that into huge gains for the companies she leads.

The Story: Ginger Graham, then President and CEO of Advanced Cardiovascular Systems, implemented the Culture Track^™ Training throughout her entire organization. Ginger began her tenure as president of the company by soliciting candid feedback from all levels of the organization on how both she and the company could grow in the future. People who would have otherwise ducked the danger inherent in offering a new CEO honest feedback eagerly accepted the risk. Ginger went out of her way to follow up on all feedback, letting people know how much she valued it and describing exactly how she was going to use it to improve herself and ACS. And she did. In fact, in an article Ginger wrote in the Harvard Business Review entitled, "If you want Honesty, Break Some of the Rules," she described the feedback process we helped her take her team through as they participated in the Culture Track Training and Executive Coaching Process.

One by one, each member of the team would sit on a tall stool and receive both appreciative and constructive feedback on their performance. The person in the hot seat could only listen. As Ginger recounts, "The stool exercise sounds cruel, but it is just the opposite. It is probably the most powerful tool for building mutual accountability and honest communication I've ever seen... and when I sat on it, I found out how much my managers cared about me and wanted me to succeed." Ginger gets feedback because she holds herself accountable to ask for it and to provide it. We urge CEOs to follow Ginger's lead and assume personal accountability for obtaining feedback by making it widely known that they want it and value it. Openly thanking those who give them "tough" feedback will cause others to do likewise. For their part, employees must overcome the fear of risk and tell inquiring senior managers what they really need to hear.

Nevertheless you must make sure that you listen not just to what they tell you, but also to what they don't tell you. Ginger Graham, a former senior executive of Guidant Corporation and CEO of Amylin Pharmaceuticals, is a very effective and accomplished business leader. She is a strong advocate for checking in on the level of people's engagement, and she looks for opportunities to ask the right people the right questions in the right way: "What are you trying to get done today? Do you think what you are working on is really going to matter? If there was one thing you needed, what would it be?" And then, after asking her questions, she does what every executive ought to do next: she listens. The Culture Track Training helped Ginger solidify her skills at seeking feedback from every corner of the organization.

Ginger relished reaching out to people at all levels of the organization. On one occasion, during a leadership development exercise we conducted with her team, each member of the management team selected a "coach," someone else in the organization outside of the senior team who could provide a different perspective. Ginger, surprisingly, chose a worker on the shipping dock. He turned out to be a great coach. Ginger's conversations with this worker helped her to take the temperature of the organization and see how things were really going. Her associate from the shipping dock would even go out on assignment and take the pulse on specific issues that concerned her and then return and discuss with Ginger what he had learned. Ginger took great pains to listen dispassionately and to not get defensive so that she could really understand what was on the minds of people throughout the organization.

Ginger Graham understood the importance of asking for feedback in order to achieve results. She is the prime example of an accountable person - an accountable person is an individual that constantly seeks feedback.