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.