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Let's begin the year by restating our premise: when you get accountability right, everything else is likely to go right. Execution, critical communications, trust, teamwork, leadership, change... name the organizational imperative and you will find accountability at the heart of the effort. Get accountability wrong and pay the price in missed deadlines, poor delivery and bad results.
On February 16, 2012, Partners In Leadership brings you a new suite of training curriculum for The Oz Principle® Self Track™ Training, including the new Implementation Tools website and a newly revised participant workbook that is fully integrated with the new website. Click here for a sneak peak of the new workbook.
These cutting edge tools include the first-of-its-kind website designed solely for clients to enhance their skill in implementing greater accountability for results into their daily work. And the best news: every workshop participant receives free access to the new PILTools.com website.
Sustainability just got even easier with access to guided tutorials that walk you step-by-step through the workshop curriculum. Use the tutorials when you want and as often as you want.* The tutorials will help you apply the principles and practices of greater accountability in your daily work to overcome the challenges you face and to solve the problems you encounter.*
Better results are just around the corner with the new Implementation Tools website. At your fingertips are - client best practices; practical self; team and 360° assessments; expert practitioner advice; case studies; original research; celebrity interviews; relevant video content; and a wealth of other resources never before available.
We are excited to be the first in the industry to bring you this type of new offering to enhance your training experience. Now, The Oz Principle Self Track Training will be an even more powerful tool in the hands of everyone looking to create greater accountability for achieving results.
Mark the date on your calendar and schedule your workshop with a Partners In Leadership expert facilitator February 16th will be a "Sweet 16!"
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Use your smartphone to access this QR code to see the workbook. |
*Free access is for a 60-day period from the date of initial log in to the website. Extended access is available per the pricing schedule, provided upon request.
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In an accountable culture, people consistently assume personal accountability for their circumstances and regularly overcome obstacles by asking one question: "What else can I do to achieve the desired results?" This simple question is one of the best solutions to problems of unmet expectations and unachieved results because it puts those who ask it in the right mindset for resolving issues—helping them become much more resourceful and diligent in searching for new ways to move forward and achieve the desired results.
Consider, for a moment, how two strong competitors recently addressed a pesky issue: the number of overcharged customers—defined as charging the customer more at the register than the price in an advertisement, on the shelf, or on the item itself. For one competitor, the number of overcharged customers had increased dramatically in recent years. By contrast, the other competitor had only one tenth as many overcharged customers during the same time period. However, both companies continued to be strong performers. So, what was the difference between these two companies?
Apparently, accountability for pricing accuracy had not been established for one of them. Or, stated another way, one competitor had assumed a greater level of accountability for pricing accuracy than the other, which wasn't a major issue, until customers started switching from one competitor to the other because of it. In response, the competitor that was overcharging customers ten times as often as its rival, took immediate and decisive action by asking, "What else can we do to reduce the number of overcharged customers?" Within a matter of weeks, the disparity between the two competitors—in terms of number of overcharged customers—had all but disappeared.
A Culture of Accountability® is always created when people—on a team, in a department, in a division, or in an entire company—consistently ask "What else can I do to achieve the desired results?" And when they do, the result is always the same—key issues get resolved, performance improves, motivation soars, and ownership for achieving results grows ever stronger.
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For over two decades, we have assisted thousands of companies and over a million people in understanding how to create greater accountability for results in their organizations and teams. The positive impact of the Partners In Leadership training and consulting work has been dramatic—producing literally billions of dollars of growth, profitability and shareholder returns that are truly record-breaking. Our clients include all 13 of the "Most admired" pharmaceutical companies in the world, almost half of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and nearly half of the Fortune 50 largest companies.
We have captured this successful training and consulting experience in our 14 Practice Areas with case studies and stories about how our clients utilize the Accountability Training® content and methodology to achieve results. Click on the Practice Areas more about how the Accountability Training is used to produce results in each of these areas. You can search the Practice Areas to find client examples specific to your own circumstances. By the way, if you have a story that could be added to this database, we would love to hear it. Please contact us so that we can personally interview you.
While you're on the website, you might also want to view some of the 300+ videos that include topic-specific video segments from the authors, executive interviews on client application and 60 second or less candid comments by workshop participants.
The Three Tracks to Creating Greater Accountability® models, methodology and best practices are a powerful tool to optimizing organizational performance and morale. We are confident that you will find these new resources on our website helpful to you in your efforts to increase profitability and revenues, reduce costs and implement major organizational initiatives.
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Most people define the various facets of their circumstances as either within or outside their control. In fact, many people feel victimized when they are held accountable for things they perceive as outside their control —i.e., things they cannot change. However, in our experience, people who demonstrate high levels of accountability tend to define more of their circumstantial facets as "Within" rather than "Outside" their control. Would it surprise you if we said, "There are very few things that are entirely outside your control, especially if you think in terms of "Influence" rather than "Control?"
The process of taking greater accountability includes transferring the elements of our circumstances from "Outside our control" to "Within our ability to influence." This is the very same process whereby companies create competitive advantage and people create opportunity—by beginning to influence the things they previously viewed as entirely outside their control. Nestle Purina illustrates this process nicely. A few years ago, the company began planning the systematic introduction of an easy-to-open dog food can, until preliminary market tests convinced the marketing department to attempt a dramatic acceleration of the new product's introduction. So the Alpo EZ-Open Can team went to work, continually asking, "What else can we do to get the results we want?" They coordinated the activities at three different plant locations and assembled people from across several functions to accomplish the impossible. They cut market introduction by more than a year, something that had, at first, seemed impossible.
The way people take greater accountability for their circumstances and exert more influence is by asking the question, "What else can I do?" The repeated asking of this question makes it possible for people to formulate new and creative solutions that make progress possible. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of the thing itself is changed, but that our power to do is increased." And stay engaged. When pesky problems persist, don't give up and stop trying—or wait and see if things will get better on their own. You will never make progress by focusing on what can't be done. Think differently, as Albert Einstein advised, "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." Always solicit and strive to understand perspectives other than your own.
Yes, taking greater accountability to redefine the "Uncontrollables" and exercise more influence upon the factors that affect your ability to succeed requires personal stretching and a willingness to see reality. But the benefits are more than worth it. To assess your own level of personal accountability, click on "Individual and Team Assessments".
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For over the last two and a half decades, we have focused our consulting and training work on helping leaders of organizations large and small create a Culture of Accountability in their organizations. This has included projects and assignments with some of the worlds most admired companies and some of the toughest workplace environments. Through all of this, we have become the most published authors on workplace accountability with our three bestselling books, The Oz Principle, How Did That Happen? and Change the Culture, Change the Game, all of which took the No. 1 leadership book spot on New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, etc... The topic of accountability resonates for people in every type of organization and has been the subject of our careers. Here are what we have come to know as the five bedrock principles of accountability:
Principle One: Accountability is a choice.
Principle Two: There are two sides to accountability.
Principle Three: Accountability begins by clearly defining results.
Principle Four: What you create accountability for is what you get.
Principle Five: The most important person to hold accountable is yourself.
Principle One: Accountability is a Choice.
Let us begin with a real story that happened to Suzanne Volle. She works for a large women's clothing retailer that is organized into about 100 districts with stores located throughout the United States. 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.
This is the choice everyone must face when it comes to their own personal accountability for getting results. Do I go Below The Line when I am faced with tough, difficult obstacles or do I choose to get Above The Line and take accountability for my circumstances and get the results I want?
Principle Two: There are Two-Sides to Accountability.
Webster's Dictionary defines accountability as "subject to having to report, explain or justify; answerable, responsible." In other words, accountability is something imposed upon you, when things go wrong. We think this definition misses another, even more important side of accountability. That is the personal ownership that people should demonstrate when they truly take personal accountability for achieving results. When you take personal accountability, you Own It. You ask yourself, "What else can I do to make progress, overcome obstacles and achieve the result?" You don't waste time blaming others or waiting for someone else to solve your problems, but you actively engage and deeply pursue solutions. This proactive, before-the-fact, aspect of accountability is the essential ingredient that makes accountability a bedrock principle to optimizing personal and organizational performance.
Accountability, correctly understood and effectively applied, produces results. And with those results comes a level of personal satisfaction that can be achieved in no other way. Sue, in the story above, made a choice that she would take accountability for being seen as a "renter" and that she would now become an "owner." Helping people make the choice to operate Above The Line and take accountability for their circumstances and overcome the obstacles they face is an essential skill that anyone who manages and leads people must learn to master.
Principle Three: Accountability Begins by Clearly Defining Results.
This may seem like common sense, but our experience has shown it is not common practice. In our research, surprisingly 9 out of 10 leadership teams cannot give a consistently aligned answer between team members as to the top three key results the team needs to achieve. They always have a general idea, but are often unable to provide the details. Accountability begins by clearly defining results. A clear definition of results, one that everyone throughout the entire organization can understand and repeat, are essential to getting your accountability system to work.
In a leadership workshop, we asked the European management team of a large pharmaceutical company we worked with what the top result was that they needed to achieve. They told us it was "BUC," which stood for Business Unit Contribution. We asked the team, "What's the number?" Everyone went silent. No one wanted to say. We asked them to write down the number on a piece of paper and pass it to the CFO in the back of the room. There was a $300 million dollar variance between the high number and the low number; and that was the senior management team! You can't hold either yourself or others accountable for unclear results; and when you do, you will destroy morale and stop your progress.
Principle Four: What you Create Accountability For Is What You Get.
Back to the story with Sue, she 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 2 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 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!
Principle Five: The Most Important Person To Hold Accountable Is Yourself
We like to ask, who is the most important person to get Above The Line? Of course, that's you! For Sue, the payoff for taking personal accountability was impressive and lasting. In 2006, Sue was ranked 89 out of 94 districts in sales % over the previous year. In fiscal year 2010, 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!
That's the power of personal accountability. That's what happens, every time, when people are faced with difficult circumstances or tough obstacles and they make the choice to operate Above The Line.
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The US Army War College teaches their best and brightest future leaders the skills they need to navigate a world environment that they describe as VUCA—Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. In fact, the university has actually acquired the nickname, VUCA-U. The VUCA state also effectively describes the challenges we all face in the competitive, political and ever-changing world of business. The volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of challenges that arise every day have a tendency to drag people Below The Line® when they are faced with obstacles that are seemingly out of their control. We call these the "uncontrollables" and they include the weather, competition, traffic, government regulations-anything that makes it difficult for us to progress and that we feel we have no control over. We can feel victimized by these issues and literally be stopped dead in our tracks.
Everyone faces these "uncontrollables" that stand in the way of achieving results and business objectives. In fact, they often become the built in "excuses" (as legitimate as they are) for why progress is not being made. Often, they become so much a part of the culture that we accept an explanation for a lack of progress as long as it is tied with an uncontrollable. You may recall that Rule No. 3 of the Blame Game is to "Always remember the quality of an excuse increases proportionately with the degree to which that 'reason' is outside of your control" (The Oz Principle).
For one of our clients, the FDA was the "uncontrollable" they faced. Competitive conditions made it even more important to launch their new product, an innovative medical device, into the marketplace as quickly as possible. They knew their competitors were right behind them, but they also knew that being first to market brought great strategic advantage. The challenge is that it took 12 months to process the FDA application for approval and they did not have that much time. In the past, before the culture change work we did with the company, they would have made every effort to optimize the process, but with the promise of little success. Now, with a total focus on operating Above The Line® and asking, "What else can I do?", they took some bold steps.
To repair and improve their relationship with the local regulatory office, the marketing VP was assigned to Regulatory Affairs. The IT group developed a software solution that would allow the organization to file their application electronically, something that had never been done before. They visited the local FDA office and offered the software development solution at no cost, offered the computers they would need to use the software and offered to be the beta test. Building on the improved relationships with the local office, they secured approval to run the test. Of course, the beta application was for the new product they were bringing to market. An application that would have taken twelve months took only four, and they were the first to market by a wide margin! When faced with the "uncontrollables," the challenge is to stay Above The Line and ask, "What else can I do?"
Recently an executive leader client told us: "...during the last two months we have experienced road block after road block, product quality issues, government regulation issues, competitor issues, internal sales and marketing issues, reimbursement issues, all of which were difficult to predict. As a result of the accountability and culture-change work we have been doing, we have minimized the negative impact of all these issues and created a competitive advantage that, otherwise, would not have existed." Another client executive leader in a different company told the same story but ended it with, "now we will be better at predicting and anticipating the obstacles in our environment as a result of taking greater accountability for staying committed to achieving the result by creatively dealing with the obstacles we have."
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Everyone who has ever been involved in an enterprise-wide implementation, has quickly discovered what we call the Accountability Gap. This gap can be described in several ways, such as the difference between knowing and doing, reporting versus tracking, talking versus communicating, delegating versus empowering, motivating versus engaging...the list goes on. The gap describes the difference between what you really intend to have happen in the organization and what people are actually doing.
Every organization or team faces the dilemma of the Accountability Gap. In fact, there are probably some significant gaps that you are dealing with today in your own work. These gaps in performance extract a price that can be measured not only in terms of organizational efficiency and effectiveness, but in terms of progress towards achieving results.
When Accountability Gaps persist unchecked, they create what we call in our book, How Did That Happen? Holding People Accountable for Results The Positive, Principled Way, a Phantom Reality®. That is, we begin to believe in our own inaccurate description of how things really are. When you operate under the assumptions of a Phantom Reality®, your inaccurate view of "how things really are" can cause you to make the wrong decision, solve the wrong problem and move in the wrong direction. Phantom Realities frequently lead to wasted time and effort and almost always impede people from achieving the intended result.
One organization we worked with had one of the most sophisticated performance management systems we had ever seen. Individual goals and objectives were tied directly to organizational strategy. Everyone in the company could link their individual work priorities to the goals of the Chairman of the company. They even had a system people used for implementing counter-measures when goals were in jeopardy of being missed. However, a survey of the top leadership group revealed that people broadly believed that the results the organization needed to achieve were unclear, that individual goals were not really connected to organizational goals and that the counter-measure plan was not being utilized as intended. While the leaders knew there was a gap, they had underestimated the significance of that gap.
By definition, when an organization experiences an Accountability Gap it means that people are just going through the motions. There is a difference between activity and results, and that difference measures the price we pay in terms of effectiveness. Every leadership team should conduct an Accountability Gap Analysis to determine where their gaps are, how significant they are and which are most important to close first.
Creating A Culture Of Accountability addresses the gaps as people take greater ownership, buy-in and invest, operate Above The Line® and truly engage in moving the organization forward. We all know these gaps exist and may be caught in the trap hoping a dose of tenacity and repetition over time will make things better. This is a fallacy that can sabotage almost every effort to move the organization forward. Closing the Accountability Gaps should be a priority for every leadership team.
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When it comes to optimizing organizational performance, here's our core belief: "Either you will manage your culture, or it will manage you." Every company has an organizational culture that is working full time sending cues to people on how to think and act in that organization. Culture never takes a holiday or vacation; never calls in sick; never comes in late. It's always working, whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not. The question isn't "Do we have a culture?" The question is "Does our current organizational culture supercharge our efforts to achieve the results our stakeholders hold us accountable to get? Is our culture helping or hindering?"
Cultural Beliefs
The results you currently get are produced by your current culture. You build your culture around the results you need to achieve. If a key result is growth, then there are certain workplace beliefs you need people to hold about what is important, how to get work done, how to resolve conflicting priorities, etc. Those beliefs are what we call Cultural Beliefs and should be well defined and fostered. A Cultural Belief is a belief you need people to hold that is prioritized as being essential to how people need to think and act in the desired culture in order to achieve the desired results. When it comes to clearly defining the results around which the culture should be based, many leaders get a failing grade. In our research, a surprising 9 out of 10 leadership teams cannot give a consistently aligned answer among team members as to the top three key results they need to achieve. They always have a general idea, but are unable to provide the details. A clear definition of results, one that everyone throughout the entire organization can understand and repeat, is essential to creating an organizational culture that will produce those results.
Getting Clear On Results
In a leadership workshop, we asked the European management team of a large pharmaceutical company what the top result was that they needed to achieve. They told us it was "BUC," which stood for business unit contribution. We asked the team, "What's the number?" Everyone went silent. No one wanted to answer. We asked each person to write down the number on a piece of paper and pass it to the CFO in the back of the room. As it turned out, there was a $300 million variance between the high number and the low number. Why don't leaders get clear about their key results with their organizations? We think leaders sometimes make a lot of assumptions that it should be obvious, when in fact, it is not.
Build Your Culture Around Your Desired Results
As the results an organization needs to achieve become more aggressive or more difficult, leaders must ask themselves "Since our culture produces our results, will this shift in results also require a shift in our culture?" If the results you need to achieve will be an order of magnitude more difficult than in the past; if they will require a deployment or redeployment of resources or people; if they signal a significant change in direction, or if processes, systems, skills, or structure must change significantly to achieve them, then a shift in culture and clarity around the needed Cultural Beliefs is not optional. Unfortunately, we often see culture as the last place managers and leaders go to work, usually when everything else is not working. Instead, it ought to be the first place leaders work to ensure results. Culture produces results.
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Accountability, it seems, has burst onto the world stage as a red-hot topic of discussion with all the signs of hanging around well into the next decade. Why all of the raging interest in accountability? Here are some of the more urgent concerns and issues linked to accountability in the daily barrage of Google Alerts we regularly monitor: financial crisis, corporate responsibility, environmental protection, global warming, sustainability, transparency, government waste, political rhetoric, fiscal responsibility, malpractice, equal rights, terrorism, mismanagement, fraud, abuse of power, corruption, legal machinations, taxation, values education, healthcare reform, the list goes on. Recent Alerts range from how Governors plan to make state agencies and departments more accountable for the money they spend by cutting their appropriations if they fail to meet their goals and reward them for exceeding expectations to how college and university students in a Campus Accountability Project plan to reform the way campuses deal with sexual violence. Thankfully, everyone is looking everywhere these days for new levels of accountability.
In the business world, all three of our books, The Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability and How Did That Happen? Holding People Accountable For Results The Positive, Principled Way and our recently released, Change the Culture, Change the Game have each hit The New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists as No. 1 leadership books, providing our own anecdotal evidence of the mounting awareness and attention surrounding accountability. What's more, current client experiences are telling us the same thing. Companies, in unprecedented numbers, are searching for ways to make their organizations and people more accountable for the actions they take and the results they achieve. Not surprisingly, accountability is quickly becoming one of the most important, defining issues of our time.
But it should come as no surprise that interest in accountability and how to more effectively manage it has been building for decades. We began studying and teaching accountability in the late 1980s because we believe that no other attribute of individual or organizational life contributes more to the success of people, teams, and enterprises. Along the way, we have developed approaches to accountability that have helped hundreds of organizations, thousands of leaders, and hundreds of thousands of employees tap the power within themselves to reach new heights. Unleashing the true potential of people and organizations requires creating a work environment with unyielding commitment to full, "make it happen" accountability-an environment where people think and act, on a daily basis, in a manner necessary to handle all the nitty-gritty details, find answers to problems, implement successful solutions, overcome obstacles, prevail over any trouble or threat that might come along, and deliver results. In such a work environment everyone continually asks, "What else can I do to achieve results and turn our vision into reality?" The full power of accountability, whether demonstrated by an individual or an organization, is nothing short of awe-inspiring-and it's a power whose time has come.
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Your team, organization, division and company all have a culture that is working 24/7. That culture is telling people what is important; what they should pay attention to and what they should or should not do. That culture is always working: never takes a holiday, never goes on break, never calls in sick. The important question that leaders must ask themselves is simply this:
Is our culture working for us or against us?
Is it helping or is it hindering our ability to achieve results? The following yes/no questions will help you find out if your culture is an issue:
| 1. | Are you delivering the results you promised? | |
| 2. | Are you hitting your deadlines and staying on schedule? | |
| 3. | Are people investing their hearts and minds and truly engaging in helping your team or organization succeed? | |
| 4. | Are customers happy, both those external, as well as internal to the organization? | |
| 5. | Are you meeting budget? | |
| 6. | Are you seeing inventiveness in people throughout the organization? Do they regularly make things better on their own initiative? | |
| 7. | Are people feeling that they can be highly successful in delivering on what they are accountable to do? |
An organization's culture produces its results. Consider Alaris Medical Systems and the truly game-changing transformation in results that occurred. We highlight this story in our newest NY Times Bestselling leadership book, Change the Culture, Change the Game: The Breakthrough Strategy for Energizing Your Organization and Creating Accountability for Results. After 30 consecutive months of losses, CEO Dave Schlotterbeck and his team implemented the culture change process we describe in our book. The results were phenomenal. The stock price soared from .31/share to $22.35/share, growing at 5 times the market rate. Watch CEO Dave Schlotterbeck talk about his experience with culture change at Alaris. Click here to watch Dave's video.
