I have been a disciple of accountability for years, believing it is the answer to reaching integrity. I needed more of it for myself, for my teams, others need it for them and their teams. But there is a problem with accountability.
But lately I’ve been paying more attention to that feeling I get when I think about or ‘do’ accountability. That not-good feeling I’m sure you’re familiar with.
The notes that follow are a general direction for this enquiry.
Some definitions of Accountability
- Accountability is the process of holding people to account for what they’ve done/not done.
- Accountability is the sense of responsibility an individual can feel for achieving (or not) something.
- Accountability doesn’t feel like fun.
- Accountability, without sufficient competence can easily cause anxiety in both accountor and accountable.
We tend to back away from applying accountability, or we do it poorly and with mixed results because:
- we don’t want to be judged/embarrassed/to disappoint their team mates
- we don’t want to be the source of discomfort that is the above, don’t want to be the mean boss, want to be liked/not disliked
- we don’t want to deal with negative fallout of putting people on the spot.
- we don’t want to revisit their past trauma of being put in the spotlight on their staff
- we don’t know it’s needed for teams to function at high performance
- we don’t feel confident/don’t know how to do it
- we don’t have a structure/process/system/role for it to feel natural
- we don’t have time to deal with the fallout of managing it badly
This mess happens because:
- people bring a right/wrong/bad/naughty/lazy/ judgement into the space of accountability conversations. Accountability = potential for getting into trouble.
- feels like school (treat adults like kids and you’ll lose their adult contribution, and I’m an adult so why am I being treated like a child?)
- neuro-psychologically, we are both in threat/defensive mode, not in creative/playful mode and therefore unable to a state of higher performance and engagement with each other & the task. [will find a good recent reference for this]
The frame of ‘accountability’ is problematic for all these reasons.
So what to do?
What other models do we have for successful teamwork?
- completing a jigsaw puzzle together
- playing a sports game
- going out clubbing with friends (when I was younger). Although, to be fair, this had mixed results…
What work practices, structures, habits, conversations, etc based on these models could be used instead of ACCOUNTABILITY?
What new social technologies (eg Holacracy, Agile Scrum, gamification, etc) incorporate these?
Share your thoughts with me on Twitter.