Tag Archive for: accountability

The Five Key Ways To Unleash Greatness On Your Team

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I meet some amazing leaders in my work. People hire me to work with their organization and I end up growing by spending time with them. One such leader who has turned into a good friend is John Liston. John was formerly a regional director at Great West Life, and now is the principal of Liston Advisory Group. John lives what he leads. He’s a person of strong character. He’s passionate. He cares. He cares about his people. He cares about the work. He cares about his organization. And his approach to leadership produces results. When he was at Great West Life, his region was the top region in Canada in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Unleash Greatness Within A Team

In a recent conversation with John about his coaching experience with his daughter’s Under 19 Ringette team, he explained how he coaches the same as he leads. Same philosophy. Same approach. Same leadership. Here are John Liston’s five keys to unleash greatness within a team:

  1. Hire Great People.
    You need to know the skills you need from your people but, more importantly, you need to know the kind of attitude you want from the people around you. You can always teach skills, but you can’t teach attitude. Building a great team means knowing precisely the kind of person you want on your team. It means hiring s-l-o-w-l-y. Take your time. Ask questions and assess the right fit. If you study what we do in business you find that we spend our time hiring for competence (resume, experience, etc.) and we almost always fire for character. What John, and other great leaders do, is hire for character, and train and develop for competence.
  2. Create an environment for people to be their best.
    When are you at your best? Typically it is when you are focused, but not worried about mistakes or failing. In John’s words, “When we win, we party; when we lose, we ponder.” This means it’s okay to make mistakes, as long as you learn from them. See the best in people. Fit people don’t fix people. Find their strengths and build on those strengths. Find a place where people can take their gifts, their passion, and their talents, and make a contribution. It takes coaching, mentoring, and, most importantly, time. When you create these environments, people “chose to” come to them; they don’t feel they “have to”.
  3. Understand the why before the what or the how.
    At the 1963 Washington D.C. Civil Rights March, Martin Luther King did not stand up with a “strategic plan.” Martin Luther King had a dream. He had a “why.” He gave people a reason. John Liston understands this. He understands that people aren’t accountable if they aren’t motivated. If they aren’t accountable, it’s because they don’t have enough reason to be accountable. A vision, a “why,” is what gives people a reason to get on board. John uses the vehicle of sport to teach character – that is the why. Some people get confused and think sport is about winning. Professional sport may be, but all others are about character. Winning is a by-product. It works the same in business.
  4. Execute with precision.
    John is a master of accountability cultures. He understands that you have to inspire people, and then you have to link that inspiration to clearly defined outcomes and a precise way to get there. This is where John is tough. He models the values. While he cares about people, he has a precise, results driven process for creating an environment for people to hold themselves accountable – to themselves and each other.
  5. Celebrate Success.
    In John’s words, “you have to know what success is, know how to get there, and know how to celebrate it when you’ve achieved it.” You have to know what “right” is, and then catch people doing it right. You have to care and you have to connect. Celebration can be big or it can be small, but most importantly it has to be meaningful.

John’s passionate, inspiring energy is contagious. It’s always been important to him to create an environment in which people have a chance to be their best, to realize their potential, and to be recognized for their achievements. John is the kind of leader people want to work for. He’s also the kind of friend people seek.

What kind of environment are you creating on your team?

The Key To Organizational Leadership: Strong Character

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Hydro One, a Crown corporation that runs Ontario’s transmission system, fired an employee this past week who shouted obscenities at a Toronto television reporter after a soccer game. While the company’s code of conduct (which all employees sign) covers after work behavior, the decision to let the engineer go generated a heated debate online.

In an exclusive interview, Hydro One CEO Carmine Marcello gave his rationale for making the decision:

“…at the end of the day, it was a pretty simple decision. We [as a leadership team] looked at who we are, what our core values are, and we made a values based decision, and decided we couldn’t condone that kind of behaviour. We had to send a clear message to the employee, and quite frankly to our employee base, and made a decision to terminate him.

… I have yet to find a single person to say his behaviour was commendable. It just doesn’t exist. So, really what we’re saying is, hold yourself to a high standard at work, and quite frankly, hold yourself to a high standard within society.

…I’m sure he’s free to speak his mind. We all are. I think there’s also a level of common decency and decorum that we all expect, and not getting into a debate, I’m just going back to the first principles in Hydro One: the issues and the values that we hold dear around our people, our customers, and working collaboratively together. What’s important to us drives business success.

… it’s clear that this behaviour did not fit with who we are as a company and we took appropriate action.

… We have our own code of conduct, we’ve had it for many years. When I became the CEO a number of years ago, one of the things I really focused on was transforming our culture. Job one was to improve our customer service … but at the end of the day it’s about people and their ability to do great work. So I rolled out a process about identifying certain core values around our employees.”

It’s inspiring to witness a company and CEO stand for something. My father would say that these organizational leaders have an almost forgotten quality: character. Character is about choosing what’s right over choosing what’s popular or easy. Being a person or a company of character isn’t taking the comfortable road. But this is what business culture, organizational leadership, and employee accountability are all about. If you don’t stand for something, if you don’t have the courage to hold yourself and others accountable to what you say you stand for, then why have fancy value statements on your website and office walls in the first place?

I admire Mr. Marcello and his leadership team for having the courage to remain true to the foundational principles that Hydro One’s culture is built upon. The organizational leadership they exercised isn’t just good for their company; this kind of leadership is good for society.

The Roots Of Employee Accountability

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“There are a thousand hacking at the branches… to one who is striking at the root.” – Henry David Thoreau

Certain species of bamboo trees in Southeast Asia grow less than an inch in four years, but in their fifth year will grow over a hundred feet. An unseen root system develops below the surface that enables the plant to support its enormous growth in that fifth year.

All systems, whether they are bamboo trees or employee accountability systems, require solid roots to be both enduring and regenerative. After all, it’s not the fierceness of the storm that determines whether we break, but rather the strength of the roots that lie below the surface. Far too many employee accountability and performance management systems don’t have a strong, established root system. Tasks are assigned to employees in a haphazard way, hoping that the worker will “figure it out” and deliver an adequate, even superior, performance, or alternatively, you find yourself coerced into using a rigid, bureaucratic performance review system that is demeaning and disconnected with the needs of the human spirit. If either of these are your accountability process, you will soon realize that neither ‘hope’ nor rigidity are very effective strategies for holding people accountable.

An effective, engaging, and enduring employee accountability process must grow from good roots. After helping organizations develop accountability processes for more than two decades, I have found seven key principles that form strong roots of accountability in a workplace.

  1. Clarity. Ambiguity breeds mediocrity. People need to have pristine clarity about what is expected of them in terms of operational results as well as expected behaviors. Whenever possible, write down what you expect from each other. Visibility drives clarity. But the most important thing to be clear about is the results expected. If it’s in your area, function, or project, you are accountable. The organization is depending on a set of results. Accountability – the ability to be counted on – is about making a promise to deliver.
  2. Agreements. A request is not an agreement. Clear expectations must be followed up with a mutually decided upon arrangement. Every request needs a question, “Can I count on you to meet my expectation?” Be sure the person you are holding accountable has the resources, the capability, and the willingness to come through.
  3. Support. Accountability without support is pressure. To be sustainable, every agreement must come with support requirements. Whenever you expect something from someone, it is vital to ask how you can support them. Support requirements make the accountability agreement mutual and respectful.
  4. Connection. Accountability without connection is compliance. In the age of the internet, everybody is communicating, but few are actually connecting. You can’t hold employees accountable by emailing them your expectations. You have to get out of the office, get in front them, and make the connection. Connection is about listening, supporting, and being genuinely interested. You’ll have a hard time holding anyone accountable for long if they don’t believe you care – not just about the results they produce, but also about who they are as a person.
  5. Authenticity. Accountability without passion is drudgery. Often, if people aren’t accountable, it means they don’t have enough reason to be accountable. It’s a whole lot easier to hold someone accountable when you have helped them identify their passion and make the link between meeting your needs and meeting their own. Commitment has to be authentic in order to last.
  6. Consequences. Accountability without consequences is meaningless. But consequences are not the same as punishment. Consequences are the result of delivering – or not delivering – on your agreements. If you do what you say you are going to do, there are positive consequences. If you fail to do what you agreed to, there are negative consequences. It’s important to negotiate and clarify consequences as early as possible in the agreement process. Consequences are the some of the key motivators to accountability. Be sure to explore both the internal and external consequences of honoring your agreements.
  7. Follow up. What is the required follow up? How often – and when – do you need to meet to ensure the accountabilities to each other are met? These are vital questions in the accountability process.

You might have noticed that the fundamental principles that form the roots of an effective accountability process with others are also the principles that underlie accountability agreements with yourself. Whether keeping agreements to others or yourself, or holding others to account, be sure to take the time to ensure good roots.

Jumping Out Of Bed: Creating An Inspired Workplace

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“Going to work is a chore. It’s just a job. A necessary evil. A prison sentence. Doing time. Collecting a paycheque. I hate it.” How often have you heard someone talk about his or her work in these terms? Perhaps you have spoken this way yourself on occasion. Perhaps you speak this way more often than you’d like.

While we all may feel this way at times, what if most of your life was spent hardly waiting to get to the office? What if your workplace inspired you rather than depleted you? What if you jumped out of bed to get to work because you were so excited about getting there?

My passion is to make this world a better place to work. Work is so vitally important to our well-being, and life is far too short to spend these  hours in misery. We will all spend thousands of hours at work so why not have a great workplace culture?

So whose responsibility is it to make your workplace great? It is my notion that organizational culture starts with you, not your boss or your boss’s boss. While bosses set the tone, create the environment, and establish the culture, you are the one who actually creates the culture. Every employee is responsible for the culture within and around them. You make the difference.

And just how can you create a great culture in your workplace?

  1. Be authentic. Engagement comes from being who you are. Bringing your values, your aspirations, your passion, and your unique talents to work lights a fire inside you. Work is a tool to create and express what matters most. When you have a purpose for coming to work and clear values with a commitment to serve others through your role at work,your energy will soar.
  2. Build trust. Trust is the foundation of every relationship. Without trust, work will be a miserable place. And trust starts with you. Start by identifying your “Significant Seven,” the top people or groups of people you depend on or who depend on you, and make trust your number one priority with them.
  3. Be accountable. Accountability is the ability to be counted on. Being dependable with others starts with being dependable to yourself. Do you keep commitments to yourself? Do you see yourself as a person who is accountable?

What is your way of ensuring that  you jump out of bed in the morning to get to work? How do you create an inspiring workplace for yourself and others you work with?

Where Did Accountability Go Off The Rails?

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Somewhere down the line, something horrible happened to accountability. In the words of David Weinberger (a research fellow at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society), it has become,  “accountabalism,” the “practice of eating sacrificial victims in an attempt to magically ward off evil.”

Recently I worked with a sophisticated, seasoned group of senior leaders in the federal public service. Due to the regulating of the expense account process, they were not allowed to budget for a lunch for their group, but instead had to bill it to their separate room accounts and claim for it individually. Under the guise of “accountability” their judgment and trust has been relegated to a set of bureaucratic rules and regulations.

Such an emphasis on accountability is an understandable response to some terrible scandals in the private and public sectors. But the notion has grown to an extreme, suggesting that there is a right and a wrong answer to every question, and eliminating the possibility of good intention. Accountabalism bureaucratizes accountability, takes away individual choice, and drives out human judgment. Accountability – the ability to be counted on – the foundation of labor and life – has been relegated to an organizational buzzword at best, and, at worst, a hammer to control and punish people. While claiming to increase individual responsibility, accountabilism actually drives out trust. For example, when a sign-off is required for every step in the work-flow, a process is broken down to its smallest parts and the vision of the whole and the ability to see the big picture is lost. It sets up finger-pointing and blame when something goes wrong. And something will inevitably go wrong. No system works perfectly. But it doesn’t mean that the system is broken and needs fixing with more rules. If one employee cheats on an expense claim, there’s no need to distrust everyone and set up a whole new time-consuming, inefficient reporting process.

What’s needed is the return of a common sense approach to accountability that builds trust, ownership, and a renewed commitment to the greater good. Not more extremism of accountability or “accountabilism.”