Why
Do Small Business Owners Struggle with Accountability?
When
I speak with small business owners, the conversation almost always
comes round to the question, "How do I make my people accountable? The
immediate response I make is "Tell them, measure them, then trust
them."
Related
Article
What is Accountability?
One of the most elusive concepts
in management is accountability. In leadership roles, accountability is
the acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions within
the scope of a role or position, encompassing the obligation to report,
and be answerable for resulting consequences. Once accountability
becomes a part of your management style, you will see improved results
and more satisfied employees.
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Why
Do
Small Business Owners Struggle with Accountability?
When
I speak with small business owners, the conversation almost always
comes round to the question, "How do I make my people accountable? The
immediate response I make is "Tell them, measure them, then trust
them."
Now
I know that is a big step, and is not an easy one, but trust is a
critical part of the process. Let us examine this in a little more
detail. We all by
now
know that accountability grows from a two way process.
i)
The owner / manager must clearly define his expectations and
delegate the required authority. This is the part of the equation which
most owners do not do well. There are no job descriptions, to bench
marks, no agreed goals, no definition of good performance;
ii)
Measurement processes must be in place so that both
the owner and the employee can determine if the expectations are being
met. This is where we need to have some job costing process, some
physical measurement which everybody understands.
This does not have to be expansive nor a major chore, but it
should be sufficient that both sides can agree when the performance is
up to the mark.
The
two requirements above sound grandiose but let me give you an example
from the real world. A masonary contractor has a single prime metric of
performance - brick counts. These vary by type of brick or block, but
can be defined in reasonable completeness. So then you set up a
reporting system which gathers details of counts and you can now hold
your site supervisors accountable for achieving those numbers on an
overall site basis, and they can hold their masons accountable for
individual performance.
So
now we turn to trust. If you have both the above requirements in place
it is much easier to trust that all is well. If it were not so, your
measurement will tell you. Now you dont have to rush down to the job
site every day, and those interminable cell phone calls, when you
should be concentrating on your driving, become a thing of the
past.
And
a funny thing happened on your way to the golf course for the first
time in years, your supervisors felt good. They know what they have
to do, they know you know they are doing a good job, and they feel
accountable not to let you down, and they most often wont. But if they
do, you will soon know and be able to deal with it!
The
Author After 25 years consulting
to small and medium sized companies, Mike
Anderson, principal of Train
Me To Be a CEO realized that the most
important part of his work was training the CEO, and the reason he was
such a good consultant was that he did that very well.
Trained as an engineer,
he became a CEO of a midsize corporation at the age of 35. After a
spell at Harvard Business School he entered the world of consulting.
3.
Ongoing mentorship. Begins with a minimum two day one on one, but
continues with monthly or quarterly follow up sessions. (Smart and
probably Best!) .
References
A New England Contractor
"Mike Anderson has been
working diligently with the upper management team at (our firm). Mike
is extremely knowledgeable and has an exceptional way of dealing with
many different personalities. He has worked very closely with the Sales
Team to impress upon them the importance of using a consistent method
of estimating. He was instrumental in restructuring our accounting
procedures."
