The 4C’s of Accountability that Increase Performance and Lower Stress
“Holding people accountable” feels oppressive – like pressuring reluctant people to do something they resist.
Insecurity, lack of clarity, and lack of follow-up make accountability frustrating.
Frustration turns accountability into punishment.
Develop an accountability practice that lowers stress and energizes teams.
Authentic accountability:
- Creates clarity.
- Honors talent.
- Energizes teams.
- Lowers stress.
- Builds comradery.
- Elevates satisfaction.
- Serves customers.
4C’s of Accountability:
#1. Curiosity.
- What’s next?
- When will you complete this project?
- Could you send me a timeline for this project?
- How could we meet or beat the timeline for this project?
- I notice the estimate for this project is 12 hours. I’m interested in the accuracy of that estimate.
#2. Connection.
You get there when your exercise partner meets you at the gym!
Everyone does better when they feel accountable to someone.
Accountability is social.
Work that has no impact on others is meaningless. Accountability includes explaining the impact one person’s work has on others.
- “I’m helping the sales team create a timeline. When will you complete your part of this project?”
- “The production team is establishing a delivery time with our customer. What’s your timeline for this design?”
Accountability is about taking care of each other.
#3. Clarity.
Who, what, and when are the core of accountability.
Timing is the most difficult part of accountability.
End meetings with the accountability question. “Who does what by when?”
Deadlines establish importance and urgency. Work that’s due in six months doesn’t feel as important as work that’s due tomorrow.
This week is better than next week when establishing accountability. Create short-term milestones for long-term projects.
#4. Contribution.
Contribution is the heart of accountability. “I appreciate your contribution to this project. What’s your timeline?”
Show respect to a person’s strength if you expect them to bring their strengths to work.
What lousy accountability practices have you seen?
What accountability practices work best for you and your team?
Bonus material:
How to Improve Accountability in the Workplace in 5 Steps (Insperity)
Discover how to Hold People Accountable (Coaching for Leaders)
Tools for Leading Through Disruption!
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Always establish–“single point accountability.” Make one person accountable for XYZ.
Thanks Paul. Simple and elegant.
Thanks so much for your cents every day.
I have most difficulty with #3 Clarity, taking VUCA, agile methods, and so on into consideration. What if unexpected things happen (on a regular basis), new priorities come in or other “constant” changes. How much time should I spend on making accurate time lines, if the world looks different tomorrow and requires adjustment?
I tend to reduce making exact time lines (for everything above one month), and try to review topics in a 1-4 weeks interval and appreciate also small progress if time was crazy.
Thanks Stephan. It makes sense to shorten timelines during turbulence, change, and uncertainty. Thanks for jumping in.
Establishing a critical path (what MUST be done before the NEXT critical thing can be effectively done)
does wonders for everyone seeing their efforts in perspective – that what they are doing is both relevant and material, and HOW –
and also builds a team ethic of accountability – of each for the other, of each to the other – naturally and unforced,
so long as we stay away from the individual blame game.
Easier said than done, but well worth the effort- it actually works.
Thanks Rurbane. Your insight re:blame is powerful. When I know the next person down the line is waiting for my work, it helps me feel connected and responsible to them… as long as I like the.
Dear Dan,
Accountability is the key factor in ensuring desired success and the best way to practice professionalism at work place. It certainly brings good clarity in the job role and the tasks as assigned with commitment to deliver results in a given time-frame.
Successful CEOs have two major tasks to fulfill while visualising the organization progress and growth with short-term and long-term goals. First, they take good care in selecting right talents either picking up from inside or hiring new talents followed by bringing Accountability factor with effective communication and required collaborative efforts.
Thank you Dr. Asher. It’s hard to beat the combination of good talent and healthy accountability.
Thanks Dan! I love the option to purchase these via .pdf. Thanks fo much for these insights!
That’s great. Thanks Zack. I plan to do it for a year and see if people find it useful. Cheers
You did a great job of summarizing such a powerful topic. I attempted to prove the powers of accountability by practically applying principles from the books, “Crucial Accountability” and “The 4 Disciplines of Execution” and made a video explaining my results to some of my colleagues (I work as a call center manager):
https://youtu.be/PH4ipWdzW84
Dru Marais
team-guide.com
Thanks Dru. Love your video. It was the first time I heard the term “Hiding” for getting a spanking. 🙂
Haha well, happy to have introduced you to it!
A common reason managers/leaders don’t keep others accountable is they don’t know how. Too often it’s a case of… “you are a leader now go lead!” … “You are a manager now go manage!” Without the training, mentoring and support they need, they flounder. Self-leadership, self-awareness and self-management are the traits they need to develop into successful leaders and managers.
Thanks Carolyn. Good to see you here today. This post is based on a young leader’s self-discovery of how to hold people accountable in a way that feels good.
One of the worst things leaders do is try to do it like someone else when they haven’t tried to find their own path forward.
Awesome, thank you very much
Thanks joelle.
Holding people accountable sounds controlling, why not hold them capable instead?
Rhonda,
People may be capable–but still not get the task or project done on time and within budget.
So true Paul. Frankly, we all do better when others are part of the journey. The language of accountability is a bit disappointing, but the principles of accountability are important.
Thanks Rhonda. I’m with you. I never cared for the way “holding people accountable” sounded.
I was once asked to step into a failing medical laboratory as an employee and observe why the lab was possibly failing. What I saw was unbelievable. Lab techs were watching YouTube on their phones all day, sitting in the break room napping and hanging out at each other’s stations laughing and talking for hours. The main problem was that there only 1 login for all lab techs, so some techs were taking credit for the little work that was being done by just a few people. Also, when a mistake was made, nobody would own up to it because nobody knew who did it. My suggestion was to create logins for each person and keep track of everything that each person does. The change was immediate! Once everyone was held accountable for their own work, the failing lab turned into a very successful lab almost overnight! That’s the power of ACCOUNTABILITY!
Wow! That’s a great story, Tanya. Put your name by your work and you will do better work.
This deadline-fixated approach to accountability only elevates my stress— the bad kind. I work in IT applications. Unrealistic deadlines as motivational cudgels are the bane of our existence. “Single-point accountability” drives local optimization and turns people against each other. The only timelines that work are based on observation of past team performance, not prediction under duress and power-imbalanced “negotiation” with pointy-haired bosses. The only deadlines that matter are grounded in Cost of Delay to customer value, and those we manage to by adjusting what we deliver, collaboratively, with the customer or their designated advocate. This 20-year-old new approach has been tried and tested and it works. From this bullying-in-a-suit thing called “accountability” I heard here, Lord deliver us.
The current pandemic has certainly exposed those leaders who would prefer to shift accountability to others. This is not a good look on them, and this weakness is laid bare for everyone to see.
One phenomenon that has become common however, is criticism of people in leadership or public health who have changed from their original stated opinions or recommendations. They are accused of flip-flopping, incompetence or worse. Being accountable requires that we are cognizant of our errors and (relative) ignorance. In a public health crisis such as this one, data and knowledge changes constantly. It would be very wrong for a leader to persist in endorsing an erroneous position, just because they believe that changing their minds will make them look bad.
The best leaders will admit that their earlier knowledge may have been incomplete, and that they are staying abreast of the best scientific evidence by keeping their recommendations and policy positions consistent with the best current scientific knowledge. Such leaders should not be derided and unnecessarily criticized. The successful, accountable leader knows when to let go of an entrenched position in order to provide the best possible leadership. The best leader know that they must, on occasion, take up an unpopular position in order to best serve those they are responsible for.
The hardest thing for any person or leader to learn is how to admit mistakes. The most liberating thing any person or leader can learn is how to admit mistakes.
Now kindly excuse me while I go explain to my cats that having two snack times daily is not in their best interests after all.
I think that communication and connection are major drivers of accountability in leadership. Ensuring that a team or individual knows their work is being seen and appreciated fosters value, and keeping open communication throughout the project is important to maintain accurate expectations. I agree with your example of getting to the gym when your workout partner is there; having someone work alongside you holds you accountable and can make the experience more enjoyable. As an example of that metaphor, I have ran half marathons for years. I recently completed a race where I ran with someone, side-by-side, the entire race. While I was not competing the same way I have in the past, this race was by far one of the most enjoyable I’d ever experienced, and I was energized the entire way. Team work adds a different level of motivation.
I have certainly witnessed some “lousy accountability practices.” The first is when they do not lead by example. Pressuring others to follow a timeline or put out a certain quality of work when they themselves do not do the same immediately discredits a leader and destroys the comradery. I’ve also found that changing expectations in the middle of a project is a surefire way to create stress and deflate the energy of the team. Going in with clear expectations and sticking to those expectations is vital; a wise leader must have the discernment and foresight to determine expectations and any possible curveballs before the project begins.
I think that working with people’s strengths is important, but also understanding there are certain tasks that all members must contribute to. For example, I was a part of a customer service team that had a stack of daily paperwork to complete for all incoming product shipments. The goal was to have the paperwork completed within 48 hours, but we usually aimed to complete it the same day it was received. Once, upon returning from a 10-day vacation, I found that not a single piece of this paperwork had been completed in my absence. Perhaps completing it was my “strength,” but the responsibility did not lie solely in my job description. This actually left me feeling less appreciated by my managers, and more exploited. That being said, holding everyone accountable to certain tasks does contribute to some comradery.
Accountability is such an important aspect of life, especially in the workplace. There can be positive or negative accountability. If a person makes a mistake, he or she needs to be held accountable in order to help fix the issue and prevent it from happening in the future. On the other hand, if someone does something worthy of praise, he or she should be recognized for a job well done. Some people are great about holding themselves accountable, whether that is for a good or bad reason. Other people may be more shy or hesitant to hold themselves accountable for a multitude of reasons, like fear of getting in trouble or not wanting to seem boastful. The 4 C’s of accountability makes a lot of sense and should be applied by every leader.
Connection is definitely something that holds to be true. People tend to feel more accountable if he or she is not the only person involved in the situation. When my supervisor gives me a task to do for her or for the team, I feel personally accountable to complete it in a timely manner, by the due date so I do not let her or my team down. I agree with the portion of this blog that says accountability is about taking care of each other. If I make a mistake, I would never want or allow someone else to take the blame for something that I did or did not do. I would feel horrible if someone else got in trouble for my mistake. I hold myself accountable for the mistakes I make, but on the other hand, I am not one to boast or brag about something I did right. I also agree that contribution is a big part of accountability. My supervisor is really good about making everyone in our team feel that they are contributing to something and doing their part. I always enjoy hearing this from a manager because it makes me feel good about the work I am doing and motivates me to want to continue to do respectable work.
Very good topic and well summarized, thanks.
Great points and I much like the quote around accountability being about taking care of each other.
Great and simple! love the content.