Accountability: A New Perspective
This is re-post of an article written on LinkedIn.
In 2018 a Gallup Survey indicated that 34% of employees are ENGAGED (“those who are involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace”) in the U.S. It also found that 13% are actively DISENGAGED (“workers who have miserable work experiences”), the lowest it has been in the history of this survey. Leaving 53% of U.S. workers in the NOT ENGAGED category (Which Gallup describes as, “They may be generally satisfied but are not cognitively and emotionally connected to their work and workplace; they will usually show up to work and do the minimum required but will quickly leave their company for a slightly better offer.”).
Why does engagement matter?
According to Gallup:
“Organizations and teams with higher employee engagement and lower active disengagement perform at higher levels. Compared with business units in the bottom quartile, those in the top quartile of engagement realize substantially better customer engagement, higher productivity, better retention, fewer accidents, and 21% higher profitability. Engaged workers also report better health outcomes.”
And then there is this:
“Gallup organizational research indicates that at least 70% of the variance in team engagement is explained by the quality of the manager or team leader.”
At this point, you are probably nodding your head and saying to yourself, “Yep. Makes sense.” Most of us have seen it, lived it, or left jobs or teams because of it. So why does this happen?
I am going to make the case that the accountability pyramid needs to be turned upside down. That we approach organizational management in such a way as to create this new reality. And, in my opinion, accountability is the key.
In thinking about this article, I did a little research of my own and conducted a Google search on the traits, characteristics, and qualities of good and great leaders. I pulled articles from sources that most of us typically would acknowledge as reputable sources: Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, MSNBC, Harvard Business Review, CNN, etc. Full disclosure: Many of the business related sources: HBR, Inc., Forbes, etc. had numerous articles on the subject. I put all the characteristics in a spreadsheet and looked at the trends. Accountability was only listed once. One time.
It came from a 2014 Inc. Article and it defined accountability this way:
“Extraordinary leaders take responsibility for everyone's performance, including their own. They follow up on all outstanding issues, check in on employees, and monitor the effectiveness of company policies and procedures. When things are going well, they praise. When problems arise, they identify them quickly, seek solutions, and get things back on track.”
I agree with this. I think most people would say this is a pretty good way to describe accountability. If you were to give me a fact from a survey, for example, I would hold you accountable by asking what was the methodology used to conduct that survey and process that led to the conclusions. That’s how you hold someone or something accountable.
And that’s what is profoundly broken in most organizations. I started to make a list that began with government, colleges & universities, and charitable non-profits and just gave up. It was too demoralizing. Let’s agree that accountability is in short supply these days on a number of levels.
Let’s recap:
U.S. Employee Engagement is low (Reminder: 66% are either DISENGAGED or NOT ENGAGED)
Engagement is heavily dependent on the quality of a person’s manager (70% of the variance)
We consistently don’t prioritize accountability as a valuable trait of leadership and it is clear that many organizations across the globe lack accountability.
I would argue that leaders, starting at the CxO level, are not asking the hard questions of their direct reports and holding them accountable. They just presume that they are accountable. And this just cascades down the leadership chain. I have personally witnessed this in action on a number of occasions.
So what does this mean? I came to the conclusion that the current accountability pyramid looks like this in most organizations:
This shows, in my opinion, what is going on generally. When you have a less senior title in an organization you are held to a higher level of accountability. As your title increases, the amount you are held accountable decreases.
What do I mean by that?
Well, most people who are in entry level roles are told how to do their jobs. The bulk of their work day consists of following formal (written down) or informal (not well documented) processes to get their work done. Managers hold them accountable by either setting targets with specific measurements or just asking them what they are doing and how they are doing it. On the surface, not an unreasonable approach to getting work done. If something goes wrong, or a manager is interested in improving performance, she/he will ask for details on how an individual employee is doing their job. That employee then needs to explain how they got from point A to B. This is the manager holding that employee accountable.
In addition, most leaders above the level of Director, and certainly at the level of Vice President, see their job as going to meetings and sharing slide decks (usually prepared by other people) with their bosses. They think their job is to make decisions, but they rarely have time to read more than a few bullets. Aside from Amazon’s practice of making leaders write their report in narrative form, how many other examples are there of companies that choose to communicate regularly using detailed narratives? How many of us have been asked to put very complex ideas into three bullets in a deck? (You can’t see it, but that’s me raising my hand!) In fact, I would argue that most leaders don’t even have a real understanding of what all the people under them are actually doing.
The problem gets worse, in my opinion, as you rise up the chain. For most of my 25+ year career, as you get to the top of that pyramid (Directors, VP’s, CxO’s) the level of accountability decreases and, in many cases, begins to completely disappear.
“Not so, Mike!” you might argue. “It is the executives and leaders whose jobs are on the line when things go bad.”
Is it, REALLY? I would beg to differ. Here are a few examples of evidence to the contrary (I didn’t spend too much time looking for these):
During the mortgage crisis, the U.S. Government bailed out financial companies that were paying their most senior leaders huge bonuses despite laying off thousands of people, committing fraud, and, in many cases, knowingly breaking the law.
Last month Boeing fired its CEO after fatal airline crashes, F.A.A investigations, numerous failures, tons of bad press, etc., he will walk away with an estimated $60 Million.
When most companies layoff workers they are at the lowest levels of the company. Wells Fargo laid off over 5,300 people as a result of the fraud case that was uncovered in 2016. The CEO walked away with an estimated $130 Million + package.
You get the point.
How often are senior leaders at the top of the pyramid being asked, how do you intend to accomplish that? What are you doing to improve how your team functions? How do you measure the effectiveness of your teams and the processes they are using? What was the methodology you used to arrive at the numbers your are presenting in this deck? For that matter, how many non-disclosure agreements and settlements related to the misconduct of senior leaders in some of the highest profile companies, are sitting in corporate legal department files right now? Fox News? NBC? Google?
I think we all have experience working for someone at the VP level or above, who was a tragic leader creating far more harm than good. Yet that same person has gone on to find other jobs at the same level or higher because no one in their management chain wanted to be criticized for making a bad hiring choice.
There is a solution!
I propose we turn the accountability pyramid upside down. That organizations institute very clear directives to managers and above, on a progressively increasing accountability scale, that require them to be accountable. Every day, they are required to know their business inside and out and we ask them the hard questions about the decisions they make, the information they present, and the people they hire. That the accountability pyramid looks like this:
If a Manager, Director, VP or CxO can’t answer the hard questions then they need to step down. This isn’t the middle ages any longer, when people actually believed that rank and position made the life and livelihood of a single individual more valuable than those with lesser rank and position. So why should we run our organizations and companies like we still live in that time?
If you are a VP and you spend all your time having people prepare your decks, only to then waste more of their time explaining what they mean (you know who you are), then you are part of the problem.
Interestingly enough here is what Gallup says about talented managers:
One in 10 people possess the talent to manage.
Companies miss the mark on managerial talent in 82% of their hiring decisions.
Conventional hiring processes are a big contributor to inefficiency in management practices.
Companies apply little science or research to find the right person for the managerial role.
Most companies promote workers into managerial positions because they seemingly deserve it, rather than have the talent for it. This practice doesn't work.
That last bullet bears repeating and emphasizing!
“Most companies promote workers into managerial positions because they seemingly deserve it, rather than have the talent for it. This practice doesn't work.”
I am convinced that making leaders more accountable is the key to finding the best leaders for the role. Leaders who are accountable will hire the best people (future leaders) for their team. Leaders who can’t, or won’t, be accountable will either self-select themselves out or it will become evident quickly they aren’t a good fit for the role their in. The good leaders will purposely hire and work with their teams more actively, giving them greater responsibility and sharing in the rewards of success. The net result will be more engaged employees at every level. More engagement means:
Teams perform at higher levels
Substantially better customer engagement
Higher productivity
Better retention
Fewer accidents
21% higher profitability
Healthier workers
Yeah, gimme some of that.
C’mon leaders. Time for a change.
Michael Pellet is a leader in the Internal Audit space and currently Director of Internal Audit at Lyft, a rideshare company. Michael has spent the bulk of his career in the technology sector, with experience at Fortune 500 SaaS companies in operations, marketing, and audit roles. Michael was also a successful entrepreneur, which included starting and selling two separate companies as well as raising outside investment capital for a medical products company. You can learn more about Michael on LinkedIn.
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