ACCOUNTABILITY IGNORED

Earlier this year I designed and facilitated a management offsite meeting, focused on better balancing time between technical/business work and the actions of managing others.

But to my surprise [I should have known after 6 years working with this team], the focus became sharply defined as HOW TO CREATE ACCOUNTABILITY among both peers and direct reports as well as support functions. Examples of the problem included:

• How do we get IT to keep their commitments?
• How can we get everyone to keep deadlines without constant reminders?
• When people are stuck, what prevents them from asking for help?
• When establishing priorities, how can we keep people from going off on tangents?
• What do I do that creates a lack of accountability?

The short answer: create a culture of "owner mindsets" where people genuinely feel it is their job to support each other, to take initiative to discuss ways to improve business functions, to reach out to stakeholders of one's work so they are on the same team.

How do you know when their is a need to address accountability? A frequent one I observe is when a manager points the finger to others as the source of problems or why something has failed.

Another is represented by an executive I am coaching who can not add headcount so wants to increase productivity by moving work to other departments...rather than examine his own leadership in dealing with his own department.

Do you work in an environment of owner mindsets?