Solutions
Do you hear yourself and others complaining about accountability in your organization? Do people and teams underperform, fail to produce expected results, miss deadlines and not even let anyone know until it’s way too late?
To have an accountable culture, first you need to understand culture!
Most people think culture means “the vibe” of your business, whether people like each other and work, and what kind of social events you sponsor. While all of these are certainly byproducts of the culture, what the term culture truly means in an organization is “how we do things.” Culture is much more determined by how you make decisions and live by them (or not), how you deal with problems and conflicts, and how you share information (or not) than it is by the company picnic or even learning about each other’s styles.
What every organization needs to be successful is an accountable culture.
In other words, an environment in which people can count on each other to take actions that are consistent with the outcomes they’ve agreed they want and need to produce.
Most business cultures aren’t set up to for this. They are more likely to set up moving targets, conflicting priorities, competition within the organization, and direct or indirect rewards for withholding information. This breeds distrust, resentment, slow downs and breakdowns. Things that a ropes course or team building can never solve.
What is required for a truly accountable culture is clarity, support and agreements that give people a real shot at being able to count on each other, be consistent, and take meaningful action. When this is in place, the typical culture work companies do is a great relationship-enhancer and reward for good work. When accountability is not in place, trust falls and rope courses and cooking classes do more harm than good.
Myth: Culture change takes years.
Culture change can happen in a day. When you’re working on the right things, when you are leveraging the collective thinking and energies of the organization, when you are putting the right agreements and support structure in place, culture change happens instantly. We set up this kind of instant culture change and provide the thinking, tools and structure to implement the change immediately and solidify it over time.
Are the thinking and behaviors in your business aligned with the results you want and need to produce?
If not, let’s have a conversation about our system for building true accountability into your business practices and your culture.
