Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s formidable CEO, periodically leaves one seat
open at conference room tables and lets all those in attendance know that they
should consider that seat occupied by their customer, whom he calls “the most
important person in the room.” The interesting part about many of our
organizations is that on your teams there are many actual customers watching
you do business every day. When we ask ‘are you customer driven’ and ‘do you
have a customer focus’, I wonder how they react watching you lead our company.
That Empty Chair routine is an interesting one. Wonder what would happen if you
routinely had an empty chair at your team meetings, your coaching sessions,
your staff meetings and made that same announcement. I wonder what the reaction
would be? It would be easy to ask, “And how could that help your customers?”
wouldn’t it? It could not be a one time, flavor-of-the-month kind of thing. It
would have to be what you were known for... a solid customer focus. 11+
million of them all crowding into that one chair sort of beats the ‘elephant in
the room’ pretty significantly, doesn’t it?
A frequent refrain of top managers is that "we need
to do a better job of holding people accountable." Accountability seems to be the mantra for
organizational get well programs these days.
I can agree with this in part, and yet there is an aspect of accountability
that feels to me like a cop out.
The key to leadership is to create an environment whereby
people do the best they can because they want to do it. When employees know it
is clearly in their best interest to give their maximum discretionary effort to
the organization, managers don't have to crack the whip as often. Imagine working in an environment where
people do the right things not because they are expected, but because it is in
their best interest. In that atmosphere,
holding people accountable would nearly always be a positive occurrence rather
than negative. How refreshing!
It is the actions, attitudes, and intentions of leaders,
not the rank and file, that make the environment of either reinforcement or
punishment the habitual medication for individual performance issues. Let's
examine 8 attitudes or behaviors of leaders that can foster a culture where
holding people accountable is a precursor to a feeling of celebration instead
of a sentence to the dungeon.
Be
clear about your expectations - It happens every day. The
boss says, "You did not file the documents correctly by client; you
totally messed up." Then, the assistant says, "You never told me to
file them by client, so I used my initiative and filed them by date because
that is what they taught us in Record Retention." Holding people
accountable when the instructions are vague is like beating an untethered horse
for wandering off the path to eat grass.
Be
sure of your facts - I learned a painful lesson about this
early in my career. I gave my
administrative assistant a letter to type for a customer. When I got it back, the letter was full of
obvious errors. I immediately held her
accountable for the sloppy work and called her into a small conference room to
let her know of my disappointment. When
I told her about the errors, she said, "Well if you had taken the time to
notice the initials on the bottom of the letter, you would have seen that I
farmed that work out to Alice because I was busy with other things. I did not type that letter." Gulp. I tried to cover with, "I am glad,
because your work is usually higher quality than that," but the irrevocable
damage had been done. If you are going to accuse someone of sloppy work, make
sure it was done by that person.
Be
timely - If there is an issue with performance versus stated
expectations, bring the matter up immediately.
If you wait for a couple days before trying to bring up the issue, it
just tends to cloud and confuse the person who did not meet expectations. If a boss says, "You did not answer the
phone in the proper way last week," how is the employee supposed to even
remember the incident?
Be
Kind
- Always apply the Golden Rule liberally. If you had a lapse in performance,
justified or not, how would you want to get the information? Keep in mind that
some people are more defensive than others, so if you like your feedback
"straight from the shoulder,"
tone it down when dealing with a particularly sensitive individual.
Be
Consistent - If you are a stickler for certain behaviors, make sure
you apply the discipline consistently. Coming down hard on Mike for being late
for work can seem unfair if you habitually let Mary waltz in 45 minutes after
the start of the shift. Always avoid the appearance of playing favorites.
Recognize that, as a human being, you do have differences in your attitudes
toward people, but when holding people accountable, you must apply the same
standards across the board.
Be
Discrete - Embarrassing a person in public will create a black
mark that will live for a long time. If there is an issue of performance, share
the matter with the individual privately and in a way that upholds the dignity
of the person. This issue also refers to
the Golden Rule.
Be
Gracious - Forgiving a person who has failed to deliver on
expectations is sometimes a way to set up better performance in the future. Get
help for individuals who need training or behavior modification. A leader needs
to be mindful of his or her personal contribution to the problem through past
actions, like not dealing with a problem when it is small. If the current
infraction is a habitual problem or one born out of laziness, greed, or
revenge, then stronger measures are needed. People cannot be allowed to
continually fail to meet expectations. The corrective measures will be based on
the severity and longevity of the problem. One caveat: gracious behavior cannot
be faked, so be sure you are calm and have dealt with your own emotions before
speaking to the employee.
Be
Balanced - This is an incredibly important concept. There is
nothing written on a stone tablet that says all forms of accountability must be
negative. In fact, I love it when
someone holds me accountable for all the wonderful things I have done along the
way. If we view accountability as both a
positive and a corrective concept, then we can remove much of the stigma
associated with the word. When I hear a
top manager say, "We need to hold our people accountable," I assure
you that it means negative feedback in most cases. This is an easy thing to
change by simply modifying our pattern of feedback.
Holding
people accountable is a great concept if it is used in a consistent, kind, and thoughtful
way. Try changing the notion of accountability in your work area to incorporate
the 8 "Be-Attitudes" above, and you will have a significant
improvement in your culture.
Robert Whipple, MBA, CPLP, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of: The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, and Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations. For more information, or to bring Bob in to speak at your next event, contact him at www.Leadergrow.com, [email protected]
Ken Blanchard has done a
significant amount of researching and writing about business issues and
solutions and in his Change Management work he has this statement: Contrary to popular belief, people don’t
resist change; they resist being controlled. The last
time I checked, you were still a people so that probably applies to you as
well. The implications for you as a leader in that simple statement are huge.
We change all the time. Think about the things you have changed in just using
technology in the last 3 years. You’re starting to be a minority if you don’t
have a smart phone of some kind or if you can’t get on the internet any time
you feel like it. We make changes all the time of our own doing, but we hate
being controlled and often we throw resistance all over the place at it. As a
leader that means you need to go into thinking mode when you’re needing
something to change. Actually if you’re a good coach and you can ask they right
questions, they will figure out the change all on their own and that is a
change that stands a much better chance of happening than one you deliver like
a dictator. Start practicing that wonderful art of asking questions.
Focused Leadership is a book which provides you a synopsis of the approach I diligently crafted, refined and applied in order to get the leadership results I desired over my 30-year career leading large and small organization in Fortune 500 companies as well venture capital backed start-ups. In Focused Leadership I have incorporated a series of informative and concise discussions regarding my leadership approach, which I now call the “10-Step Approach to Leading and Winning”.
Persistence,
purpose, passion and focus are fundamental characteristics of effective leaders.
Gaining persistence requires determination and a mindset. Persistence in
leadership is somewhat analogous to running a marathon. To run a successful
marathon you have to spend ample time preparing. The time you spend and what
you do leading up to the race will determine how well you perform in the race.
I believe that
the traditional textbook definitions of a leader’s purpose, such as maximizing
employee performance, are old news. In today’s fast-paced world of the
Internet, social media and global competitiveness, a leader’s purpose is to
ensure that “new futures” are created as rapidly as external markets evolve.
Also, as a
leader, your passion and attitude are contagious and uplifting. They set the
mood for everyone around you. The same goes for your focus. If you have a
“laser” focus and a mindset to win, so will your team. Leadership is simple,
but is not easy. One of the factors that separate effective leaders from others
is their ability to focus their attention, not just on dealing with crises, but
on creating and executing ideas to move the organization forward.
If you persist
with purpose, passion and focus in everything you do --- you will consistently
lead and win.
PERSIST WITH PURPOSE, PASSION AND FOCUS
Earl Cobb is
the author of "Focused Leadership: What You Can Do Today to Become a
More Effective Leader", and an American “rags-to-riches” success story. Through his
hard work, dedication and faith, Earl has forged an accomplished career as a
systems engineer, project/program manager, and gifted entrepreneur. He is also
a highly respected senior management executive. He has enjoyed over twenty-five
years of success within Fortune 100 companies including Honeywell,
Inc., Motorola, Inc. and Wells Fargo Bank. He is the former President
and CEO of MedContrax, Inc.
You can contact Earl at earl@richerlifellc. You
can find his website at www.richerlifellc.com
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