Accountability: An Easy Word to Say, but a Hard Word to Practice

If you ask any associate in any construction organization the top two areas of improvement, the first would probably be communication. Feeling in on things, knowing the direction of the firm, knowing the score of the game, “drive-by” communication and lack of time are all common factors that have led to the conclusion that communication appears to a weakness.

The second most popular answer is a lack of accountability. “To be clear, I hold myself accountable, but our leaders don’t hold people accountable.” What does this even mean? Can you have a group of individuals who each do a splendid job of holding themselves accountable only to have an organizational breakdown because leadership fails to galvanize the team with a common definition of accountability? On one hand, there is probably an assumption that leadership is hiring self-motivated, self-starting individuals who do not require a great deal of management. Theoretically, if recruiting, hiring and onboarding are done effectively, there should be an adequate foundation of individual accountability.

Many firms realize that their managers and supervisors are doing a million things daily to keep the ship afloat, and senior management’s thought is, “How can I possibly ask more of the team when they are already doing so much?”

Many leaders confuse “activity” for “productivity,” failing to apply corrective action to deviant behaviors. These first two accountability flaws can be attributed to good-natured presumptions about performance, as misguided as they are.

The insidious accountability traps are the more common threads that upset the fabric of an organization. Too often, leaders extol these refrains, creating toxicity amongst the team:

“If I push too hard, the team will leave.”

• This assumption is based on the premise that if you hold talented players accountable, they will automatically leave.
• Meanwhile, high performers become potential flight risks when they see under-performers skate through with minimal effort.

“We don’t have anyone else.”

• Simply put, “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.” Subpar performance is better than having no performance.
• By accommodating the lowest common denominator, a firm permanently relegates itself to accepting universal mediocre performance.

“The best mechanism to drive accountability is the paycheck.”

• Another interpretation of this statement is that the weekly paycheck should be all a top performer needs to do the right thing.
• Rather than provide ample positive reinforcement — most of which could be of the free “atta boy/girl” variety — it chooses to employ the devious fear tactic of the pink slip in an employee-driven environment, where firms are constantly seeking to retain talent.
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“Some of these people have been here for years.”

• Tenure must trump performance, apparently. Put in your time, and you can coast.
• Organizations need to have tenured associates, but it needs to be under the right circumstances. High-performing individuals who exhibit organizational loyalty have the right combination. Low-performing “lifers” create stagnancy and erode the loyalty of the high performers extremely quickly.

“We don’t want to become too corporate. We’ve been a family business, and we don’t want to lose that feeling.”

• There is a false perception that “corporate = bad.” The same false premise is that “family = no accountability.” For those readers who are part of a family, there is probably no greater source of accountability than that of a family. Everyone has a responsibility, and failure to oblige has consequences. The real interpretation of this statement is that leaders choose not to have challenging conversations and prefer lawlessness in lieu of appearing like a corporation that has rules and structure.

“We didn’t provide a playbook, training or structure, so it’s hard to hold the individual accountable when we did a poor job in the first place.”

• It is noble to recognize the failings of leadership, but it also cannot be consistently wielded as an excuse. Put another way, a manager or supervisor might be dropped into an uncomfortable situation. On the other hand, year over year, there comes a point where leadership makes the internal changes to its machinations to improve organizational performance.

High-performing organizations do more than highly self-motivated individuals. The leadership of these firms have adopted a series of mechanisms to drive a culture that is predicated on mutual accountability. Below is a summary of tools that are used to reinforce the right behaviors:

• Metrics and upstream KPIs — Too often, firms only look at the downstream results. They see profitability, schedule performance and safety, and assume they are achieved by doing the right things. However, great firms measure both the upstream (doing the right behaviors) and the downstream (powerful results). Measure and publicize the correct behavior model that establishes the firmwide definition of success.
• Plus/delta feedback — Great firms lean into providing constructive feedback. More importantly, they do not singularly dwell on the negative but rather provide an appropriate blend of fact-based “plus” feedback (what you like about their performance and its impact) and the “delta” and what constructively could be changed and the subsequent impact. High performers don’t necessarily need positive feedback, but it sure is better than only being caught doing things incorrectly.
• Nonmonetary rewards — Not to be confused with a trophy for participation, nonmonetary rewards are simply creating a culture that acknowledges the wins. These can be as simple as the aforementioned “atta boys/girls,” or something more formal to thank the team members for hitting high performance milestones.

It is important to recognize that one of the greatest impediments to achieving successful accountability is time. As fast-paced as many organizations are moving, it is easy to discount the importance of “slowing down” to address the right behavioral model. When every team member is pulling in the common definition of firmwide accountability, little is left to chance.