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A group of seventy-five leaders from a mid-sized consumer products company recently met for an annual leadership conference. Part of the agenda was to discuss the organization's key results. The CEO kicked-off the conference with a presentation on the company's four major goals which dealt with revenue, profitability, customer satisfaction, and new product development. Two hours into the meeting, three things became very apparent:
1.) These leaders were not accustomed to discussing the organization's key results,
2.) They rarely used the four key results as a framework for prioritizing their daily work,
3.) There was a genuine hunger manifest among the leaders for more conversation about how their jobs,
responsibilities, teams, projects, and priorities could be better aligned with the organization's key results.
The CEO was shocked! In his mind, he had communicated the company's key results clearly and succinctly on numerous occasions prior to the conference. However, faced with the stark reality that the company's top leaders were still unclear, confused, and uncertain about the company's key results and how they would be measured throughout the company, he took immediate action. The rest of the day was spent clarifying the key results and discussing how to help every employee in the company connect their roles, responsibilities, and daily activities to those key results. On the following day, the Steps To Accountability® model which utilizes the four See It, Own It, Solve It, Do It ® steps presented and applied to build greater accountability among the seventy-five leaders for achieving the company's key results. In the end, the CEO and his leaders admitted that the conference was one of the best they had ever held because of the new clarity, understanding, and commitment that was forged around the company's key results.
Too many leaders in today's organizations fail to clearly define, fully disseminate, and adequately discuss the key results that will ensure their organization's sustainability. Ask yourself this question: Do the people in your organization clearly understand the key results your organization must deliver to ensure its sustainability? Your organization's key results should be memorable, measureable, and meaningful for everyone in the organization. By meaningful, we mean results that can ensure the organization's sustainability and be readily tied to every employee's individual role and responsibilities. By measureable, we mean results that can be effectively quantified and frequently checked. By memorable, we mean results that can be easily remembered and regularly used to guide daily actions. When leaders neglect to define their organization's key results in a meaningful, measureable, and memorable way for everyone in the organization, accountability suffers because people don't have the benefit of knowing exactly what they are accountable to deliver. People who have a crystal clear understanding of their organization's key results consistently demonstrate higher levels of accountability for achieving those results than do people who have a less clear understanding of their organization's key results. In our experience, people in organization's hunger for more clarity around the organization's key results, because they want to be successful-and they want to take greater accountability for what matters most to their organization.
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Getting the most out of your training depends first and foremost on integrating your new knowledge and skills into your daily work life immediately. The old adage-if you don't use it, you lose it-is true. Integrating new knowledge and skills into the fabric of your daily work life is the key. Here are some examples:
- Daily tasks- consider each of your daily tasks in terms of their relevance and impact upon achieving the desired results.
- Interpersonal exchanges- find ways to make focused feedback part of every substantive interpersonal exchange during the day.
- Group meetings- use the steps of See It, Own It, Solve It, and Do It as a framework for discussing and resolving pesky issues and problems.
- Developing others- apply the four principles of accountability coaching-listen for obstacles, help the other person identify one obstacle they can influence, facilitate the solve it question "what else can you do to achieve the desired results?" and test for movement and progress-whenever you encounter someone languishing Below The Line® because they're not taking accountability for achieving results.
When it comes to taking accountability-knowledge or skills, unapplied, rank lower than ignorance and incompetence. Internalize your new knowledge and skills by integrating them into your everyday life.
