The Hindu Business Line : ‘A’ for Accountability

As children, the first lesson that all of us learnt in school was ‘A for apple’. For any first-time CEO, the first lesson to learn (if there ever is a CEO school) must be ‘A for Accountability’. Not learning this simple yet important lesson early in life can seriously jeopardise the chief executive’s personal effectiveness and affect the performance of the organisation.

Consider these three real-life examples that I have had the opportunity to witness:

The owner and CEO of a mid-sized manufacturing company has a reasonably large executive team. They have the experience, the functional expertise and the domain know-how. Yet, the CEO constantly feels that he is pulling all the weight. While he believes that they are all sincere and hard-working and have the company’s interest in mind, he also worries that no one seems accountable for anything in the company.

In my second example, this technology company was co-founded by four friends. They worked together as a well-knit team, always deciding and managing by consensus. Everyone was involved in everything. This style was fine when they were relatively small. As they grew in size and complexity, many things began to fall between the stools. The teams under each of the co-founders found this joint accountability style very unproductive because this forced them to get everyone’s agreement on everything. Execution was beginning to fail and results were not forthcoming.

The CEO of a BPO recently hired a Head of Operations. Having built a solid client base through a track record of quality and on-time performance, he was anxious that his new Head of Operations continued this tradition. As delivery issues began to surface, he quickly began to hold the Head of Operations accountable for on-time performance for each customer. This forced the Head of Operations to spend all his time reviewing each and every project, troubleshoot when things went wrong and secure performance. It was only about six months later that the CEO realised that the Head of Operations had now been reduced to a glorified Delivery Manager because of the kind of expectations he had placed in him.

In all the three examples above, the right people were in place. Their intentions were honourable and they were all very hard-working. But execution did not happen.

Indian organisations are fraught with problems of weak accountability. The CEO thinks the entire management team owns results, but falls short of pinning specific measures on individuals. We have seniors being held to micro accountabilities and we have juniors being held to macro accountabilities. There are many chasing some dimensions and none chasing the vital ones. Unless the CEO is clear about who is accountable for what and reviews it with rigour, he cannot secure execution.

What is accountability all about? What do CEOs need to understand about accountability? What can they do to get accountability right? There are three simple truths about accountability that I would like to share:

Accountability is more than responsibility

Webster’s dictionary distinguishes between the two terms in this manner: ‘responsible’ implies holding a specific office, duty or trust; ‘accountable’ suggests imminence of retribution for unfilled trust or violated obligations.

In other words, responsibility is about ownership of an endeavour, for example, a project, a problem, an assignment. Accountability is being held to the consequences of the effort, i.e., the outcome of the project, the solution of the problem or the fulfilment of the assignment.

CEOs must be clear about the distinction between accountability and responsibility when planning for performance and reviewing for results. They must first establish and communicate who they will hold accountable for results in each specific result area. It is then for that person to determine the people who will share the ownership for getting it done. In the first case that I shared, the chief executive’s team was responsible for everything and acted in good faith, but the CEO was not clear about the process of establishing specific accountability for each result area.

Accountability is singular

Related to the sharp distinction between accountability and responsibility is the fact that while many people can share responsibility, there can be only one person who is accountable for a given result area.

Take the case of the four friends who founded the technology company. While they were all responsible for everything, no one person seemed to be accountable for anything. This led to significant confusion over a period of time. Accountability cannot be collective.

accountability must be level appropriate

CEOs may understand accountability and may even pin it down on specific individuals, but they may not establish accountability in a manner that is level appropriate.

With our modern-day anxiety about being metrics-driven, CEOs may end up pinning the wrong metrics on the wrong person. In our BPO example, we saw the CEO attempting to hold the Head of Operations accountable for on-time performance.

While there is nothing wrong in the Head of Operations spending a few months to fix delivery issues systemically, should he be accountable for that? Should he not be held accountable for a larger measure of customer retention or satisfaction so that he has a wider span and can make larger trade-offs in achieving results?

It is prudent to hold executives in senior positions accountable for much wider accountability dimensions and those at more junior levels for narrower dimensions. For example, being accountable for saving costs is different from being accountable for profitability. Accountability for market share is broader than sales revenue achievement. By cascading accountability, we will be able to ensure a clear distinction between the transactional and the strategic.

The world of business has long recognised that the secret of success is great execution. What they must urgently recognise is that the secret of great execution is clear accountability. CEOs who do not learn that ‘A stands for Accountability’ will realise instead that ‘A stands for anxiety’!

(The writer is the founder and CEO of totus consulting, a strategic HR Consulting firm. He is also the co-founder of the Executive & Business Coaching Foundation India Ltd. He can be reached at ganesh@totusconsulting.com)

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