Archive for Techniques
Erin is a real person whose professional and personal identifiers have been removed from this article to protect her anonymity.
The Backdrop…Erin is a high performer who unwittingly joined an organizational culture that lacks, ducks, avoids, circumvents (provide the adjective of your choice) accountability. To make matters worse, the organization publically admits its accountability shortfalls, but doesn’t take corrective action. For Erin it seems that everywhere she turns, things are broken, performance targets are missed, measurement systems are ‘gamed’, productivity is lost, commitments aren’t kept, responsibilities are shirked, mediocrity is embraced, due diligence isn’t performed, excuses are accepted, employees spin their wheels (some care, some don’t) and the highest levels of leadership allow the insanity to continue by turning a blind eye.
Click to continue reading “Erin’s Story: Trapped in a ‘No Accountability’ Culture”
Retaining Pivotal Talent – Your Company’s DNA
Posted by: |
Excerpt from A-CHIEVE! (April 2011)
When was the last time you took a hard look at not only your rock star performers, but also those leaders and team members who are serving in über pivotal roles that could either create or destroy your value proposition? If your answer is any one (or combination of) the following:
- I can’t remember.
- What’s the big deal!
- I don’t have time for that.
- This economy is so bad, no one can find a job.
- My team loves me – no one would ever leave – and if they did, I’d just replace them.
- As long as we keep the guys and gals on the front line happy, since they interact with our customers, we don’t have to worry about anyone else behind the scenes.
- Let Joe the guy who is reporting to me, worry about that!
- So, I’ll just hire someone else if ultra-talented, amazingly gifted, highly artistic Becky quits because she’s got that ‘artists’ temperament thing about her, so the heck with her!
…stop and reassess.
Click to continue reading “Retaining Pivotal Talent – Your Company’s DNA”
Solving the Accountability Puzzle
Posted by: |
Excerpt from A-CHIEVE! (April 2011)
“High performing organizations (HPOs) use information to help people improve by giving people abundant, timely and helpful data about their performance on a regular basis, individually and as a group.” (Harvard Business Review)
We would ask you to consider amending the author’s statement by suggesting that, as leaders, we focus not only on helping our people improve, but helping them optimize their potential. But how does one realistically go about doing that in our running-to-the-next-fire, never-having-the-time-to-take-a-breath, pressure induced leadership lives? The answer – create a Culture of Accountability. Embarking upon this mission certainly takes a bit of strategizing, planning, defining and implementing, but once you start working the puzzle, creating momentum and declaring incremental successes, the inertia becomes self-perpetuating and each building block becomes self-sustaining.
This begs the question…how does one construct a Culture of Accountability? We would suggest the following 12 Critical Steps and have provided a brief explanation of each:
Click to continue reading “Solving the Accountability Puzzle”
