Why we need to rethink Accountability

Who’s accountable for this?

What do you see when you look at this picture?

If your eyes are drawn to the muddy path on the left, you won’t be alone.

Especially if you knew the goal was to build roads that would enable travel to the distant hills, in comfort, safety and at reasonable speed.

If you were assessing performance of the construction you see, chances are you would be wondering “who is responsible for that muddy mess on the left?”. It is rare, in my experience, to immediately be examining the road on the right and thinking “who is responsible for that terrific road on the right-hand side? “Who is accountable for that success?’

And that’s why I believe we need to rethink accountability.

Too often accountability is approached as an event where performance is measured.  And it is measured in terms of wrongness. The focus is on poor performance, at the expense of good if not excellent performance.

It’s understandable, given we have a strong inbuilt negativity bias.  That bias helps us be on alert to things that are out of the usual and unexpected, because we might need to take action to keep ourselves safe.    But in the modern workplace, this means we are more likely to criticise than praise, and to invest time in exploring what’s wrong, rather than invest time in discovering what’s right.

The way I see it, focusing on what’s wrong and holding people to account for mistakes, takes leaders and those they lead, away from what they want – which is great performance.

It’s time to stop holding people to account at a point in time (a big stick approach), and start helping them be accountable all of the time.