StrategyDriven

Organizational accountability exists when all members of the workforce individually and collectively act to consequentially promote the timely accomplishment of the organization’s mission.

Nathan Ives
Principle Contributor
StrategyDriven

Building an accountable organization can be a long and arduous task; renovating an entitlement organization even more difficult. During this construction project, many able builders will be lost, the victims of a harsh environment that naturally exists between the competent who seek the rightfully earned rewards of performance-based accountability and the low performers struggling to hold on to their positions of power and the accompanying easy life organizational indifference and years of clock-punching bestowed upon them.

Highly competent individuals seeking to reshape their organizations must recognize that as with all sound structures, three critical supports are needed to construct the accountable organization. These three pillars are represented by:

clearly defined, broadly communicated, time-bound goals
vertically cascaded, horizontally shared measures of performance
transparent, equitably administered consequences

Without any one of these pillars, the structure that is organizational accountability will collapse.

Consider the definition of the accountable organization. How could such an organization exist without all of the three pillars? Indeed, the pillars are imbedded within the very words of the definition. When examined more closely, the need for each pillar becomes evident.

Clearly defined goals provide definition of what component of the mission each member of the organization is accountable for. Broadly communicating these goals ensures individual awareness of their responsibilities. Time bound restricts the period for goal achievement without which the goal would never have to be accomplished and accountability, both positive and negative, cannot exist.
Vertically cascaded and horizontally shared measures of performance drive the workforce individually and collectively to act in a manner that is aligned with and promotes accomplishment of mission goals.
Aligned measurers drive decisions and actions to most directly serve the achievement of the organization’s goals and enables identification of successes and failures. With performance-based recognition, the organization becomes a meritocracy, where an individual’s performance is assessed against achievement of mission goals consistent with the organization’s values and meaningful rewards are equitably and transparently administered.

It is only through transparent, equitably distributed, goal-driven, performance-based, consequential rewards, both positive and negative, that accountability exists. Thus, it becomes clear that accountability cannot exist without any one of the three pillars. Similarly, degradation of any one of the pillars results in diminished organizational accountability and a lessening of the benefits realized.

As we explore the principles, best practices, and warning flags associated with organizational accountability, we will examine how each relates to the three pillars of accountability; remembering that without these our pristine structure will decay into the realm of the mediocre and average if not crumbling into irrelevance and failure.

Nathan A. Ives is Chairperson of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations’ Diversity Council, a StrategyDriven contributor, and co-Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over fifteen years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at numerous Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

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