Accountability VS Culture of Accountability

Who will rid me of this turbulent priest!

Henry II achieved accountability for Thomas Becket when he yelled out “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?!” and a knight who heard this, obliged by ridding him of the priest in question. Fatally.

I think we can do better.

If I have to fire someone – it may be a failure on my part.

If I have to tell someone to do XYZ “or else” – that is almost certainly a failure on my part.

I want people to hold themselves accountable – and yet they seem quite stubbornly insistent on not doing so sometimes.

What makes a culture of accountability.

1.???? Pride. In my world of healthcare and services this one is easier than in most industries. If you can tie your KPIs back to what matters – people want to hit them. If you can, frame your financial performance or number of new clients as a scoreboard for your clinical quality. “We hit our target because people knew your quality was superb and chose us.”

2.???? Competition. I once had an overtime issue in some of our (otherwise) high performing locations. One of the directors even told me she would “start caring about that, when she wasn’t the highest revenue producer in the company”. So I sent out an email. Every single morning. For years. I pulled payroll data and made a sheet with each OT rate for each location – ranked from best to worst. Daily. The bottom third was in red. The highest revenue producer called me within 5 minutes of the first email going out. She was livid. How dare I show her as last in the company? I never did again – because she never allowed her results to fall so low again. ?

3.???? Presence. You have to be there and work alongside the team. They need to know you know what they do and how hard it is. Unless you have worked a lunch shift in a nursing home kitchen – you have no idea how surprisingly stressful that can be. You have to have achievable and realistic goals to be accountable to in the first place.

4.???? Person. Are they in the right seat? I once sat down to let go a recently hired tech support rep. He was terrible at his job. I mean awful. It took him a whole shift once to get into his own computer when he forgot his password – and he was the guy you call for a lost password! After taking the time to hear why he thought he was failing and how he approached his work – we had him in the wrong job! 2 years later he was running his own newly created department and saving us $2M a year. Holding him accountable didn’t mean firing him – it meant moving him to where he could be successful by using his unique ability.

5.???? Own up to mistakes. You model the behavior you want by owning up to your mistakes to your team. And then model how we treat mistakes. If someone is afraid to let you know they messed up – you are never going to know or be able to fix it. Deming was right – remove fear (when it comes to well-intentioned mistakes)

6.???? Remove excuses. If someone did not hit their goal due to some company system or issue – help them fix that issue. If it was due to a lack of support, training, or resources – get them what they need to get the job done. But that cannot be the end – go back and ask “what else is preventing you from being successful now?” You make it clear that they are not being successful – but that you want to help them remove what is in their way.

7.???? Close the loop. Has the issue been addressed/resolved? Are they now meeting their goals? If not – Does anyone have a spare sword, because it is now time to part ways. Allowing poor performance to continue will only demoralize others and lower the standard others hold themselves to. If you are fair and consistent, you should not be afraid to pull the plug when the time comes.

You can have a culture of accountability. Treat people as people. Be consistent. Be timely. Understand and help. But ultimately the level of accountability will be what you allow to continue when it is time to call for the knights.

?#culture #leadership #opentowork #operations #nha #seniorcare #IDD #kindness #mistakes #accountability #fear #consistency

?? I am Dave

??Building financially sustainable cultures to care for vulnerable populations

??Developing leaders to work with seniors and people with IDD

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