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<\/p>\nWhat does it mean to be accountable in business? Does it have to be enforced with the blame stick, or is there a better way through empowerment? You should know the answer if you are a leader or manager.<\/p>\n
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The commercial sector does not appear to talk about accountability.\u00a0 If you search Google for \u201caccountability\u201d, over two-thirds of the first fifty results will be related to education or government and the remaining are informational or consulting services. Yet my previous post about the\u00a0seventy percent failure rates<\/a>\u00a0in business would seem to indicate some form of accountability is necessary.<\/p>\n Dunn and Halsall use marketing as an example<\/a>, noting some concerning statistics about the US 2009 marketing spend of $322 billion:<\/p>\n Those are low percentages for people playing with such large sums of money. \u00a0Yet the statistics could be excusable based on everyone doing the same thing and\u00a0acknowledgement\u00a0of the unknowns of the situation. The issue with excusing a lack of accountability in one commercial area is that it allows us to be unaccountable in other areas, such as what we saw with the banking sector during the GFC<\/a>. \u00a0If I am not accountable, how can I hold others accountable?<\/p>\n Greater accountability is needed, but what does the word really mean?<\/p>\n Organisational research shows that accountability can be good and bad.\u00a0 From the positive perspective, accountability is related to:<\/p>\n Unfortunately, there is a dark side to accountability as well.\u00a0 Negative aspects related to accountability include:<\/p>\n So which is it?\u00a0 How can research prove two sides of the same thing? The answer is found in the culture you create in your organisation.<\/p>\n Accountability without a culture of empowerment results in blame<\/a>.\u00a0 Some things we know about blame include:<\/p>\n On the flip side, empowerment without accountability results in low performance<\/a>.\u00a0 Take for example the poor response effort of the Hurricane Katrina disaster and consider the extent that empowerment requires autonomy<\/a>.\u00a0 A post-mortem on the recovery effort found a significant failing was due to multiple autonomous organisations not being accountable<\/a>. Empowerment and accountability need to go hand in hand if you are to achieve high performance.<\/p>\n Another issue with driving accountability without empowerment is found in the relationship between accountability and personal reputation<\/a>. \u00a0Increasing personal accountability while attacking the personal reputation of the one being held accountable results in lower performance, job tension and work-related depression. \u00a0Forcing accountability through degrading the other party proves to be a self-fulfilling prophesy of the other party being unaccountable. \u00a0The result is an \u201caccountability paradox\u201d, where enhanced accountability impedes performance<\/a>.<\/p>\n Accountability is a property of both the person and the situation<\/a>, both of which are assessed for competence when determining responsibility.\u00a0 To allocate blame means to hold the situation blameless, that the perpetrator could, would, and should have known.\u00a0 The practice of projecting what the other party could, would, and should have done is known as counterfactual thinking<\/a>.<\/p>\n In an accountability situation, counterfactuals are assessed for three aspects: 1)<\/strong> harm or negative consequences, 2)<\/strong> consequences attributable to the discretionary action of the person, and 3)<\/strong> a violation of acceptable standard of behaviour.\u00a0 This assessment considers two situations: A)<\/strong> sins of commission (taking action) and the presence of knowledge; and B)<\/strong> sins of omission (not taking action) and ignorance.<\/p>\n Our sense of injustice and offense increases<\/a>\u00a0based on an increase in the perceived harm or violation. \u00a0We are also more offended in situations involving commission and knowledge and less offended in situations of omission and ignorance.<\/p>\n This is why you see behaviour of passing the buck and dodging responsibility.\u00a0 Someone who consistently says \u201cI do not understand how this could be<\/em>\u201d is actually saying \u201cI am not accountable for this<\/em>\u201d.\u00a0 We have an inbuilt awareness that feigning ignorance will minimise the extent that we will be held accountable for what we \u201cshould have known\u201d.<\/p>\n In the complexity\u00a0of our commercial environments<\/a>, it is entirely understandable that phone calls are missed, project deadline\u2019s slip, and delivery of client content or assets are delayed.\u00a0 As soon as missed deadlines become acceptable by one party, then it becomes impossible for there to be reciprocal accountability.\u00a0 Just because it is understandable does not make it acceptable.<\/p>\n\n
The good and bad of accountability<\/h2>\n
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The accountability paradox: empowerment, blame and personal reputation<\/h2>\n
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Considering the counterfactuals of could, would, should<\/h2>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\nUnderstandable, but not acceptable<\/h2>\n