Corporate Accountability

A major cause of organizational frustration I encounter is a lack of accountability.

Accountability is Responsibility and Trustworthiness #

Accountability fosters a healthy corporate culture. That’s because people who are accountable understand what they are responsible for and what they are expected to deliver. And with that understanding, a network of trust is built between employees.

Accountability involves being answerable for one’s actions and decisions, both good and bad. When you are accountable, you’re more likely to take ownership of your work and perform tasks to the best of your ability.

But as organizations change, due to factors like growth or turnover, the lines of responsibility become more blurred and employees lose sight on who is responsible for what. And subsequently, who is at fault for failure.

Personal Example #

I was recently involved in a project that was tasked with the delivery of new hotel performance dashboards. The end product was not pretty and failed to deliver on what the stakeholders had wanted. So who was at fault?

Well, at the heart of it, the project was impacted by numerous delays. Several departments and employees failed to meet their deadlines and deliverables. And there was no clear project lead. As a result, the entire project timeline was impacted. This caused a great amount of frustration and dissatisfaction between teams and stakeholders as the final project was rushed at the end.

Prevention is Key #

Poor accountability led to a lack of leadership, trust, communication breakdowns, and ultimately, negatively impacted the final project outcome.

Successful organizations should continually review their workplace culture and employee accountability. It’s a good precursor to avoid poor project outcomes and employee frustration. And it is crucial to ask employees and your teams to report on accountability issues quickly.

It is much more difficult to explain failures than it is successes.