Read
New Book: Winning with Accountability
“What is it that separates high performing organizations from the rest of the field?”
For the last five years we have been answering that question with our methods for increasing accountability in organizations and the people who lead them. Many of our clients have requested a written guide and, just as you do, we listen very carefully to our clients.
As a result we are pleased to announce the October release of our new book:
This book demonstrates many of the concepts we present in our coaching and strategic planning implementation efforts with our clients. We have condensed them into a book that takes no more than 90 minutes to read, and you will discover many immediate take-away tools.
Here is what advance readers have to say about it:
"At adidas we speak over 50 languages. The language of accountability in this book cuts through them all. By simply using these tools, I’m setting clearer expectations and see them being met more often."
Steve Bonomo
Head of Group Recruiting
adidas group
Germany
"Without accountability, the greatest strategies in the world are not worth the paper they are written on. This book shows you how to make accountability a part of your organization's culture and improve performance at the same time. Use the strategies outlined in this book into action and reap the rewards!"
David Cottrell
Author of Monday Morning Leadership
U.S.
“Accountability is such an important business concept, particularly as organizations get more globally focused and pursue multiple initiatives to drive performance. Here, the concept is presented in a very simple, easy-to-understand manner. In less than 90 minutes, I was able to take away some powerful tools that I’m finding helpful in managing a complex business.”
Scott Schulman, President
Dow Jones Financial Information Services
“Winning with Accountability is a concise, easy-to-read guide for any large, medium or small business that wishes to create a more effective organization. I started using these principles before I finished reading the book. Henry pulls no punches in delivering methods any reader can apply immediately.”
Gerald Alley, President/CEO
CON-REAL, LP
“This book presents a wonderful combination of tools, examples and ‘how-to’ formulas that will inspire people to take on the mission of ‘accountability’ with confidence and enthusiasm. This is the most effective and interesting teaching and learning tool for accountability I’ve seen.”
Keith Peterson, President
SaladMaster
Following is the first half of a sample chapter; the second half appears in our next newsletter, in which we will provide purchasing information.
As always we welcome your questions or comments.
moreinfo@dynamicresults.com
CHAPTER THREE
The Language of Accountability
“Nine-tenths of life’s serious controversies come from misunderstanding.”
-- Louis Brandeis
Traditionally, language is perceived to be the structure of how messages are sent and received. However, language actually achieves more by stimulating opinions and creating emotional responses.
For example, there’s a new restaurant in town … and the people you work with are raving about the food. Even before you set foot in that restaurant or have lifted that first forkful of food, you now have an opinion. You have positive emotions about that restaurant, simply because you’ve heard language like “great food,” “ambience” and “the best I’ve ever had.”
We use language all of the time, either as a transmitter of our thoughts and information or as a receiver of others’ thoughts and
information. Since you use language anyway, why not use it in an intentional way to get or achieve what you want in creating a high-accountability culture, the appropriate language will elevate performance and improve your communication
efficiency. Your dialogue will be fast, powerful and complete.
The Four Stages of Language Development
Accountability language is real. It is visible and palpable, and there is a process to learning and using it to help you achieve positive results.
Learning the Language of Accountability is similar to how human beings learn their native language. Toddlers, for example, hear their parents using language. At some point in their development, toddlers may even mimic the sounds their parents are using, even though they don’t know the words or understand the meaning.
Eventually, these little ones begin to connect meanings to words, learn to string them together into sentences and then begin using language to convey their needs or get what they want. That’s one way we learned our native language.
Now, suppose your native language is English and you’re sitting
in an airport. The couple next to you is speaking Portuguese, a language you’ve never heard before.
Several weeks later, you’re watching a Portuguese movie with English subtitles and you immediately recognize this as the language the couple had been speaking at the airport.
Because you’re a lifelong learner and you are interested in foreign languages, you decide to sign up for a Portuguese course at the local college. By the end of the semester, you have a basic understanding of close to 100 vocabulary words. As you continue to read, study and listen to Portuguese, before long, not only can you understand spoken Portuguese, but you are also beginning to speak it yourself.
The learning process of developing organizational accountability language is very similar to learning a new language. The same four phases of language learning – hearing, recognizing, understanding and speaking – apply.
The Four Steps of Learning a New Language
- Hearing
- Recognizing
- Understanding
- Speaking – this is when organizational change begins
In this chapter, you will discover that as you apply the Language of Accountability, you will model it for your team and others you work with. Eventually, it will be a natural process. Your accountability culture begins … not with the organization changing as a whole but, instead, with the language that you as an individual choose
to use. It is through individual change that organizational change occurs and the change begins with you!
Accountability Gaps and How They Grow
You will also discover that high-accountability cultures are
something you can see.
To illustrate this, let’s take a professional basketball player, a star
of the NBA who, at one time in his career, declared, “I’m not a role model. Parents should be role models.”
We’re not using his name here because that was a goofy thing for any star athlete to say. Because, despite what he thought, there were thousands of children admiring that NBA star, wearing his jersey number, and shooting baskets until dark to become just like him. In the context of accountability, even though he was a top scorer and exciting to watch on the court, you could see that athlete wasn’t a star in the Culture of Accountability.
Now, let’s turn the dial to 1993 and the confrontation at the Mt. Carmel Complex of the Branch Davidians led by David Koresh
in Waco, Texas.
On April 19, 1993, Attorney General Janet Reno gave the FBI permission to flush the Davidians out of their residence, using tanks to smash holes in the walls of the building and then spraying tear gas into the residence. Agents then fired more than 350 “ferret” grenades into the building, but none of the Davidians obeyed the FBI's command to exit the residence. A fire then broke out and
76 Davidians, including 27 children, perished.
As word of the confrontation and resulting deaths made the evening news, Janet Reno stepped up to the microphone at a White House press conference. “I made the decision,” she said. “I’m accountable. The buck stops with me.” Her words were notable – and noticeable – because you rarely hear politicians speak this way. At that time, she was the first female U.S. attorney general and fairly new to her job. Yet, in the face of a tragic and controversial situation, she stepped forward and was accountable. You could see that Janet Reno was exhibiting an accountability culture that was the model for her entire organization.
So, what does a high-accountability culture look like? Accountability cultures do not happen overnight. The culture evolves from one person or event to the next. One common denominator is that in accountability cultures, everyone holds
each other accountable for their commitments in a positive and productive manner.
Earlier, we asked if you had ever had a relationship or a project fail. If you answered, “Yes,” chances are high that failure occurred because specificity was missing at the front end and expectations weren’t clear. That relationship or that project failed because there were “accountability gaps.”
Accountability gaps are like potholes in a road. The gaps are holes that need to be filled quickly with specificity before greater damage is done. Just like potholes in the road need to be filled quickly with paving materials before the holes become so large that they damage the cars on the road, an “accountability gap” exists when specificity is missing.
Let’s take poor Max, who was hired by a large company. His boss told him, “Max, we’re glad to have you on the team, and as long as you do a good job, your employment with us is solid.” Unfortunately, his boss didn’t tell Max, specifically, what a good job looked like (count this as one pothole). When Max headed the team for a major project, the boss said, “Get that final report to me as soon as you can.” Once again, did that mean tomorrow or next week? Max did his best but the report was several days tardy in his boss’s eyes (another pothole).
By the time Max was fired, his tenure was rutted with potholes, lacking specificity and becoming deeper and causing more damage as the weeks and months went by.
Max failed because there was specificity missing in every expectation and assignment. Nothing was clearly stated at the front end … and when there’s no specificity on the front end, Max was set up to fail.
But, let’s not throw Max’s boss under the bus just yet. Max made
a big mistake, as well. He “assumed” he knew what the boss meant when he was told to “do a good job” and to get the report completed “as soon as you can.” Assumptions dig deep potholes and are great contributors to accountability gaps leading to a failed project or relationship … and these lead to bad feelings, which become a vicious cycle of dysfunction.
Accountability is a two-way street. If you complete a task that was not specific and someone is disappointed in your work, you are the one who is considered unreliable. You’re past the point of no return. It’s too late for expectations. It’s a “gotcha” of the worst kind in every sense.
It is the role of both the sender and the receiver of the information to make sure all the potholes are filled before the task begins.
The Glossary of Failure
Language used to forecast relationship or project failure is called the “Glossary of Failure.” It’s ambiguous, lacks specificity and will assuredly lead to disappointment, failure and bad feelings. Ambiguity and generalizations lead to disappointment.
Here’s a good example. If you ask three people what “ASAP” means to them, you’ll probably get three different answers as to the specific timeframe in which “ASAP” is carried out.
Now, let’s say I’m promising an external customer a new copier and I’m relying on you to complete the service contract. You tell me you’ll get it to the customer ASAP – an ambiguous answer. How can I make a real delivery commitment to that customer?
Or, what about the ambiguous “I’ll get right on it”? Do you mean you’ll do the task immediately … or as soon as you finish reading your e-mails … or after you’ve had lunch? When is “right on it”?
Don’t confuse the Glossary of Failure with lack of intention. Sometimes, “I’ll get right on it,” means that they have great
intention and, in fact, really intend to complete the project. You don’t want to dampen their enthusiasm but you do wish to clarify the commitment.
Intentions can’t be measured. The employee who promised to “get right on it” may have had no intention of getting to your project this afternoon, the next day or even this week. That’s not lack of accountability. That’s grounds for termination due to lack of interest.
Suppose someone says they are going to have a report “by the end of the day.” So, what’s “the end of the day” for you? Is it 5 p.m.? Is it your bedtime? Or, does the end of the day come when the clock strikes midnight? Who knows and how can the person be held accountable for an ambiguous answer?
If you’re working with branch offices around the country or around the globe, the “end of the day” occurs at many different times. Let’s say you’re working on the East Coast and someone on the West Coast promises a completed task by the end of the day. Is that Eastern Standard Time or Pacific Time? Is it at 5 p.m. on your coast or 5 p.m. on their coast?
Even things that seem obvious can be a part of the Glossary of Failure. What about a promise to complete a project by the end of the year? If your corporation works on a fiscal year, that could be August or September or October. If it works on a calendar year, it’s December – but is it the first of December or the last day of December?
As you are probably observing, these types of ambiguities are all part of the Glossary of Failure … and every one of these vague phrases increases the chances of relationship or project failure.
Here are some of the biggest offenders from the Glossary of Failure:
- Soon
- ASAP
- Right away
- I’ll get right on it!
- The end of the day/week/month/year
- Later
- Try
- Should
- Best
- Might
- By the “next time” we meet
- We
So what can you do to neutralize this ambiguity? Begin using the language of specificity.
Read Part II next month.
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