We are all quite familiar with accountability as it relates to goals and objectives, those things that can be measured. One side of accountability is achieving stated goals, the other side of accountability is how we behave in obtaining those goals. I believe that some organizations have a “Dr. Jekel and Mr. Hyde” complex. Dr.Jekel is behavior accountability and Mr. Hyde is the goal accountability.
The Dr. Jekel Syndrome
In the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, author Patrick Lencioni writes about team accountability. Not only is the team responsible for the goals of the team, the team is responsible for how the team behaves. Yet most people don’t want to deal with the conflict and angst that comes with addressing behaviors. Dysfunctional behavior that goes unchecked can create huge problems for organizations.
In my past corporate life, we had a sales person, who could make his sales goals with no problem. He was consistent in achieving these goals, however, he violated every corporate value on the books. He was constantly disrespectful, temperamental, controlling, overbearing and not a team player. His behavior went unchecked AND he would receive awards for achieving his sales goals. The service department was furious that they had to take abuse and someone was being rewarded. This behavior was demoralizing and it also created friction within the sales team.
Eventually, the behavior became so bizarre that someone had to take action, but not before damage to the team and the organization had been done. We, as leaders, are responsible for ensuring that behaviors are accountable as well as goals.
In most organizations, there are stated values along the corridors, on the walls, on the back of ID cards and posted on the websites. Are these values real, or just articulated? How do you know? You know, based on people’s behaviors. If the values aren’t being lived out and no one “checks” the behaviors, then the values have no value. There is no accountability for the behavior. This often gets passed over as a minor infracture not worthy of the leader’s attention, yet it should be screaming for the leader’s attention. When minor infractions are allowed to go unnoticed, it creates a domino effect, eventually it all starts to fall apart.
Recently at the airport, I was speaking with a Southwest flight attendant, getting the scoop on the real Southwest. She echoed what we read about, they have strong values a strong culture. The flight attendant told me that you would get fired faster at Southwest for mistreating another employee, than a customer. Now, that is not saying that they tolerate poor service, but as she said, ‘if you don’t treat your co-workers well, you aren’t going to treat the customer well. We work as a team, that’s how we get the job done.” Here’s an organization that not going to let the Dr. Jekel syndrome take over their organization, are you?
Mr. Hyde Syndrom
In a recent article in Sales and Marketing Management, we discover that customer service is suffering in many industries. The article entitled, “Poor Customer Service Causes Churn,” sites the reduction of service in several industries. “Retailers suffered the greatest number of customer defections, followed by Internet service providers, banks, home telephone service providers, wireless/cell phone companies and cable/satellite TV service providers. Utility companies and life insurers suffered the fewest customer defections (selected by 3 percent of respondents each), followed by airlines (4 percent) and hotels (6 percent).”
Who is accountable for this mass exodus of consumers? The leaders, the front line workers, the sales people? Somewhere along the line, everyone who could have been accountable didn’t step up. If we were to survey these businesses, it probably wouldn’t be clear to anyone as to what happened. I suspect that if we could eavesdrop on conversations that may have taken place, we may have heard; “that is not my problem,” or “someone else will take care of that.” Often we avoid being accountable because we have to take on something that is outside of our realm of responsibility. We keep passing the problem down the chain. If this were a relay race, we could never win, because the baton is not being successfully passed on.
However, if we want to achieve the goals and objectives, we need to think about what we have agreed to be accountable for. When we sign up to achieve a goal, then we have to go the distance and make sure that it happens.
There are real costs associated with not being accountable. Goals are not achieved and more importantly, key relationship with consumers and clients are at stake. Customer loyalty once lost is hard to regain. Everyone in an organization is accountable for retaining customers. We probably don’t help everyone to understand this critical component of their job. The Sales and Marketing article advises us that, “high-performing companies recognize that customer satisfaction is built or destroyed by how well they coordinate every step of each interaction—they're focused on translating their existing service technology investments into satisfying experiences that keep customers coming back," says Robert Wollan, managing partner for Accenture's Customer Contact Transformation business. "As industries fall victim to commoditization and barriers to changing service providers are removed, those that neglect any aspect of the customer service experience risk losing market share to competitors."
Successful organizations recognize the two faces of accountability and ensures that both sides are being honored at all times.
How are you doing in holding people accountable for both their behaviors and the goals? What would you recommend that people do? Let’s me hear from you.
©copyrighted Valarie Willis 2008
Contact: val@valariewillisconsulting.com