Different Results Require Different Actions

Can you build a corporate culture where management and employees go the extra distance and are willing to take some risks; where people follow through with their commitments, accept accountability for themselves and their responsibilities?

It can be done, and the key is that you, as the leader of the organization, must first change your behavior and your thinking. You cannot change another human being, but by changing yourself first, you will be able to change the behavior of others.

If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.

Different results require different actions on your part. It also requires you to think differently. Different thinking might mean you have to give up on the idea that you have adults working for you so of course, they will be responsible. You might have to let go of the belief that if you tell them once what you want different in their behavior that’s all you have to do.

Different behaviors could include how you communicate, leaving your emotions out of the conversation, learning how to secure a commitment from others, or even accepting that there may be a need for punitive actions on your part if others continue to be a challenge.

The first step to hold others accountable is that you have to gain commitment. Without commitment, you cannot hold others accountable. Before we can gain commitment and hold people accountable, we must:

Deliver a crystal clear message with defined goals or outcomes.

Saying I want this done by tomorrow is vague and leaves the results open to interpretation. What does tomorrow mean: noon, close of business, before they leave, before midnight? Saying ‘call the agent and ask for a copy of his license for Florida’ is vague. You need to define the timing, whether leaving a voice mail is enough, should it be mailed, faxed, emailed…

How can you hold someone accountable with a vague message?

State time frames and conditions of satisfaction in the message. 

Give clear parameters: “Susie, call the vendor today before 3 PM and ask him to fax or email us the information and to verify that we can move forward based on this information. If you don’t reach him feel free to leave a voice mail but follow up with an email indicating this is a duplicate of the voice mail you left. Ask him to send us the information by Friday at noon, and to let us know if this is not possible.” 

While this may feel like micromanaging, what it does is clearly define the conditions of satisfaction, which always include time frames. There should be no misunderstandings.

Over time they will learn your expectations and you won’t have to go into this level of detail, but until that happens over-communication should be your rule.

Make sure your message has been clearly understood and that the recipient has agreed to the terms and conditions. 

Often we assume that someone will do something because we asked, and we know that they heard the words we’ve said. But have they agreed to the terms and conditions and committed to doing it? They have said ‘ok’ but what does ‘ok’ mean? It means they heard you, but that’s all you know. Ask them to confirm their understanding of your request.

This provides you with the opportunity to determine what they understood and fill in the missing pieces if necessary. Then ask them for their commitment. Until you have that commitment, all you have is a conversation, so there is no way for you to hold them accountable.

Remember the words of Francis Garagnon: “Between what I think I want to say, what I believe I’m saying, what I say, what you want to hear, what you believe you understood, and what you actually understood, there are at least nine possibilities for misunderstanding.”

In order to change the corporate culture and move it towards one where people are more accountable more often, as a leader you have to think and behave differently. You can’t expect different results by doing things the way you have always done them. Different results require different actions. Different actions require us as leaders to think differently.

Before you can build a culture of accountability, you must learn to communicate in a way that there is no confusion in the other party’s mind as to what you want and by when.

All details must be spelled out and clear. Then you have to ask for their commitment to these terms. Without commitment, you can never hold anyone accountable.

In our final part of this series, we will discuss ‘where do you go from here. [If you missed part 1 of this series, you can read it here.]