Why your Business Needs a Prudent Crucial Accountability Program

There is too much discussion about the need of having a crucial accountability program in organisations. But why so? What is the trigger to such great outcry over the absolute indispensability of the crucial accountability program? The answer is simple when you are in a scenario wherein you are endowed with authority or responsibility without any accountability to keep that in check, you are sure to fall into the trap of laxity. After all, you enjoy authority and do not need to prove that to anybody. This happens to all levels of employees and not necessarily the lower ladder as suspected. Therefore, the crucial accountability program should be made mandatory for all levels of people in an organisation. It is even more important for people at higher positions to be able to deal with issues in a better manner.

 

Secondly, if we were to simply come down to proving the utility of the crucial accountability program we could say that accountability is intrinsically linked to your performance and that in turn in linked to the overall goals and standards that you need to meet. Therefore, crucial accountability program makes you more responsible towards your job because to it are linked several positive and negative individual and collective consequences.

There are certain premises on which a successful crucial accountability program works. These include but are not limited to the following:

•    Give Authority: The fact that people are not able to deliver results, rather the anticipated results should not leave you taking strict measures and taking all responsibility from them. In fact, authority should be given to make them feel valued and important. At the same time, you must understand that undercutting authority interferes negatively with the manager or supervisor or other employees to be responsible. You need to trust the people working for or underneath you. Therefore, give them authority to carry out their work with diligence and confidence. Then and only then will they realise their true potential and consider themselves an asset to the organization.

•    Clarity: Giving authority is not enough. You must also lay down clear cut roles or assignments for them. Ambiguity is sheer evil! Be clear with what you want, when you want, and how you want it. Beating around the bush doesn’t work on the professional front. This streamlines and channelizes their energies in a positive manner towards a specific goal. Clarity also leads to better coordination among departments as no one is mingling with someone else’s business. There is better workplace harmony and people work towards their goals in a focused manner.

•    Established standards: While there are bound to be individual standards for employees, there should be an overall firm based standards that each one need to comply with. You need to gauge, analyze and differentiate your work force according to their quality standards. Not everyone can perform at the same level when pressure is paramount. The basic company policies, rules and procedures should be cleared at the outset. This should also include any clause for non-acceptable behaviour and violation of set established codes. This prevents any legal hassles and complications.

•    Resources: The elements and tools required for meting these standards should be provided. This could include training, mentoring and periodic monitoring. It is important to trace the difference in the employees and company’s performance after implementation of the crucial accountability program. This helps you identify any gaps and find concrete solutions.

Stop Enabling Gossip on Your Team

Every Friday, the CEO of a prominent tech company (I’ll call him Ken), gathers his troops in the courtyard of their campus for critical updates. The level of candor in these meetings is impressive but the most fascinating part — and what makes this company so unique, is the Q&A that follows. It’s a no-holds-barred exchange that would take the breath away of most corporate managers. The CEO implores people to ask tough questions. On a recent Friday at 4:55pm with seconds left in the meeting Ken points to an employee with a hand raised. The employee says:

“Ken, when I got here I was told you wanted a culture of candor and respect. I have an email thread that included dozens of us here from one of our top managers that demonstrates he is a flaming jerk. He was abusive, condescending and threatening. So, I have three questions for you: 1) did you know this? 2) do you care? 3) what are you willing to do about it?”

Exchanges in the Q&A are breathtaking not because the sentiments are unusual but because in most organizations they are firewalled off in gossip where they can never get to those who can do something about them. I’m not suggesting that excoriating someone in front of thousands of co-workers is a preferred way of solving problems. It’s not. But I would argue that clumsy efforts that get problems in the open are almost always preferable to collusive gossip that disavows responsibility.

First, let’s talk about why gossip happens. People wouldn’t do it if it didn’t serve a purpose. In fact, gossip serves three: informational, emotional, and interpersonal.

1. It is a valued source of information for those who mistrust formal channels. “Word on the street is that the new test facility funding didn’t make the cut.” It’s also the most common way of gaining valued information about our most important social systems. “Don’t have Ted do your graphics unless you’re satisfied with clip art.”
2. It sometimes serves as an emotional release for anger or frustration. “Chet made us look like idiots in the project review today. I was so humiliated!”
3. It is used as an indirect way of surfacing or engaging in interpersonal conflicts. “I heard Brett slammed your capital requests—and mine—in the planning meeting. I see no reason to keep processing his claims with the same urgency.”

Gossip is an effective way of achieving these goals in an unhealthy social system. People engage in gossip when they lack trust or efficacy. We become consumers of gossip when we don’t trust formal channels — so we turn to trusted friends rather than doubtful leaders. We become purveyors of it when we feel we can’t raise sensitive issues more directly — so we natter with neighbors rather than confronting offenders.

The problem with gossip is that it reinforces the sickness that generates it. It’s pernicious because it’s based on a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I lack trust or efficacy I engage in gossip — which robs me of the opportunity to test my mistrust or inefficacy. The more I use it the more I reinforce my need for it.

Over time gossip weakens the will. Like all palliatives, it provides relief from problems without actually solving them. Reliance on gossip can sap the strength it takes to participate in complex social life. Risk-free yakking about problems temporarily distracts us from our sense of responsibility to solve them. It also anesthetizes us from the painful uncertainty that inevitably accompanies mature interpersonal problem solving.

Leaders at the tech company discussed above see gossip not as a problem but as a symptom of a lack of trust and efficacy. They address the underlying problem in three ways:

1. Stop enabling. The best way to stop gossip is to stop enabling it. Gossipers are rewarded when others respond passively — by simply listening. To stop it, force it into the open. At the tech company, employees know that gossip comes with a risk — the risk that you will be called out. Recently some employees noticed a number of others had begun to use a third-party app, Secret, which allows people to share message anonymously, to complain about colleagues and policies. When they recognized their colleagues’ complaints, longer-tenured employees began calling out those who were whining rather than confronting responsibly. They even posted their names and contact information in the app to offer support for those who wanted to learn how to truly solve their problems.
2. Build trust in the alternatives. Leaders at the company also reduce the supply of gossip by decreasing demand. They proliferate options for raising problems. The all-hands meeting is just one example. The company also uses an internal social network platform to model candor and openness on a host of topics that would be terrifying at other places. For example, some employees grumbled when execs announced a recent multi-billion dollar acquisition. Monday-morning quarterbacking is common at all companies but at this company it was done with attributed comments in a discussion group – and Ken participated! One employee kicked it off with: “What’s up? We already have a business unit that does the same thing with even better margins?” The concern was addressed openly rather than metastasizing in gossip because there were credible channels for the discussion to take place.
3. Build skill. Gossip is a form of learned incompetence — an acquired skill that produces poor results. Overcoming it requires replacing that skill. The tech company starts re-scripting employees on day one. In a rigorous orientation employees are asked to describe things they hated about other places they worked. At the top of the list is always gossip and politics. Managers leading these discussions use this moment to offer alternative skills and strategies for surfacing emotionally and politically risky concerns—and to challenge employees to create the culture they want by using them.

When the employee finished her statement to Ken, other employees erupted in applause. She was rewarded because she was transparent. Every employee standing there that day got the message: “At this company we do things in the open.”

And CEO Ken followed suit: “First,” he said, “I did not know about the concern you described. Second, I care deeply. And third, I don’t know what to do, yet. I need information. Are you available now to talk?”

Gossip is not a problem; it’s a symptom. The symptom disappears when a critical mass of leaders stop enabling it, create trust in healthy communication channels, and invest in building employees’ skills to use them.

Crucial Conversations and How to Manage Them

Crucial Conversations are risky and are generally high stakes that embrace strong emotions and varied opinions. Moreover, such conversations are unavoidable and often come up when we are unprepared and defenceless. Generally, as a human nature, we try to avoid discussions we fear will hurt us or worsen the situation. Whether one-to-one interactions are personal or professional, we strive to back away from such conversations as these bring anger, pain, fear, anxiety, and confusion in us as well as in our family members. Moreover, tough conversations affect us mentally, emotionally and physically. 

Many of us are unable to handle the challenging conversations and use them to get productive outcomes. Sometimes the skills required to manage difficult conversations are referred as “soft”. However, there is nothing soft about dealing the workplace discussion process or facing a very sensitive or conflicting member of staff, who may appear to be trying to undermine you. Knowing the ideal time to expand a discussion – by seeking explanation- or improve knowledge about when to restrict talks so that they will not turn into a confrontation- can often only be learned through experience. Sometimes managers start conversations with very good intentions but often make the mistake of extending or escalating the conflict rather than controlling or resolving it.

Since challenging conversations are extremely common- and so agonizing- we should work harder to improve them. VitalSmarts offers Crucial Conversations Training in India that helps individuals to gain knowledge of how to maintain boundaries, deal with people without provoking them, take right decisions, communicate clearly and powerfully, and resolve the problems instantly. Crucial Conversations TTT(Trained the trainer) is an effective program to help people learn practical tools to enhance accountability, improve productivity and ensure execution.

A proper Crucial Conversations training allows you to stay in control of whatever unexpected challenges that may come your way. It not only empowers you to take action but also improves your confidence and problem-solving skills, and keeps you away from conversational stress.

The strategies of Crucial Conversation Program to manage difficult conversations assist business owners to upgrade their communication skills in a way that remove fear, confusion and panic among their employees. With the help of this Crucial Conversation training, sales and marketing experts will know how to deal efficiently with an aggressive client and negotiate more advantageous deals. Also, it will help employees of a company to tackle the difficult talks and get the fruitful results for themselves and the organization.