Five Star Blog

Does your organization struggle to meet deadlines? Is the blame-game commonplace in the daily life of employees? Have client/customer satisfaction scores fallen below desired targets? If any or all of the following symptoms resonate, your organization might have an accountability problem.

Accountability is the willingness and interest to assume responsibility for one’s actions and work. It occurs only when people accept full ownership of the results of their work. Without accountability, an organization is incapable of achieving and sustaining high performance.

Cultures in high-performance organizations have personal and team accountability that drives the execution of strategy and the delivery of value to the customer. Unfortunately, the concept of accountability has escaped many organizations in today’s marketplace. Although the prospect of instilling accountability throughout an entire organization can seem daunting, every person within an organization has the capability to build personal and team accountability. Here are some practical steps you can implement to cultivate accountability within your organization:

• Clearly define goals.
  Individuals have a tendency to feel ownership of measurable goals and will work harder to achieve those goals.
• Discuss the impact their work will have on the organization and/or the client.
  There is more accountability among individuals who know the impacts of their contributions, and with this knowledge, they will likely internalize consequences of those impacts, both positive and negative. Be sure to link employee goals with customer goals and expectations, as well as explain what it means to exceed those goals and expectations.
• Develop and train your workforce to feel accountable for their actions.
  Accountability in the workplace is supported when you have ongoing discussions with your employees about their goals and the impacts the goals have on the organization. Also, discuss the consequences of not delivering on those goals.
• Carry out on agreed upon consequences.
  Once goals and outcomes have been agreed upon, follow-through on the various consequences for results that meet and do not meet expectations.
• Remember the concept of accountability is contagious.
  In a team environment, it is crucial that all members hold each other accountable. Team members should feel empowered to identify a need and identify solutions for how they can meet that need. In a team setting, it is likely that the members will hold each other accountable through peer pressure and the desire for the team to be successful.

Accountability can happen only when responsible leaders and workforces commit to holding each other accountable for exceeding goals and expectations. Although accountability is not always innately found within organizations, it can be cultivated through a focused effort and ongoing coaching and training.

Over the last five years, the emergence of Social Media and its impact on society has been well documented. Social Media connects people with similar interests through technology, enabling them to share ideas/thoughts and media and collaborate around common interests. What separates Social Media from all of the previous technology-enabled movements is the dramatic paradigm shift in who drives and owns the content. Check out this great YouTube clip, which illustrates this point and demonstrates how Social Media works.

A recent Harris poll found that 49% of Americans are using Social Networking tools. This is an amazing statistic if one considers that most of these tools did not exist several years ago. The growth and popularity of these tools is going to continue to grow as they continue to gain acceptance and utility within the workplace. Some might argue that the adoption and use of these tools represents the next great opportunity for corporations.

But, how exactly can corporations use Social Media? To answer this question, it is important to understand the value that Social Media brings to a corporation. There are several key reasons why corporations are using or plan to adopt Social Media. These include:

• Communication – Enabling people to communicate with each other when they need to and about topics they find most important. Some examples of applications that are now in use include Blogs (Blogger, WordPress, and Vox), Microblogs (Twitter and Yammer), Social Networking (LinkedIn), and Events (Meetup and Upcoming).
• Collaboration – Tools to enable people to work together more efficiently and share common information that they deem important. Some examples of these tools include Social Tagging tools (Delicious and Digg), Wikis (Wikipedia), Virtual Environments (SecondLife), and Ratings Tools (Answers sites).
• Media Sharing – Sites and tools that enable people to share media about a specific topic or area with each other. Some examples of these tools include Photo Sharing (Flickr), Video Sharing (YouTube and Vimeo), LiveCasting (Ustream and Justin.tv), and Audio Sharing (Podcasts).

We are interested in finding out more about how your organization has implemented or plans to implement Social Media. Use the comments box below to submit your ideas and discuss them with us.

This week our discussion on the importance of Relationship Leadership concludes with the focus on building trust-based partnerships, internally and externally.

Mutual trust and respect is at the heart of all effective working relationships. As a leader, it makes good sense then to realize that in order to build effective partnerships with those who work for you, alongside you, or above you, you must focus on establishing trusting relationships.

Build Trust-Based Partnerships, Internally and Externally

“Why doesn’t everyone in our organization have the same sense of urgency as I do? “ Where is the accountability?” “All I ever hear are excuses.” These are just some of the thoughts and frustrations that leaders share with us when we begin leadership development engagements. Our answer is always the same. In order to build a sense of urgency and accountability, everyone in the organization must be on the same page. The only way to create this sense of teamwork and shared responsibility is by establishing trust-based partnerships with everyone in your organization – direct reports, peer leaders, suppliers, and customers.

A partnership is formed when two or more people have a common set of goals and realize that their best chance to achieve results is through collaboration. When those building blocks are established, trust begins to grow. Each person in the partnership takes ownership for his/her part in the organization. At that point, accountability for delivering expected results is a given. You don’t want to let your partners down!

Here are the three keys to creating effective trust-based partnerships:

Frame Your Values – The leader and his/her partners have to frame their relationship around a common set of values. Each person openly discusses what is important to him/her and consistently stays true to the values that are shared by the partners. These values form the foundation for the partnership. Staying true to those values provides the strength for that partnership.

Show that You Care – The leader needs to clearly demonstrate that he/she is just as concerned about his/her partners’ success as his/her own. Taking the time to get to know a partner’s needs and interests strengthens the relationship. Listening, communicating, and doing what you can to meet your partners’ needs goes a long way toward maintaining a trusting relationship.

Deliver on the Shared Vision – The final bond that seals a trust-based partnership is delivering results. Nothing does more for a partnership than the successful feeling of being a part of a winning team. When each partner gets as much or more out of a relationship as he/she puts in it, the partnership endures.

Leaders who build trust-based partnership in all aspects of their business are able to create high-performing organizations. Do you have these kinds of partnerships with your employees, peers, suppliers, and customers?

Visit our blog next week as we begin the discussion on Organizational Leadership.

This week our discussion on the importance of Relationship Leadership continues, focusing on the next key behavior of effective leaders: Provides Open Access to Information.

No one likes to be told, “You don’t need to know that.” It’s even less flattering to hear, “That information is only available to people at a higher level than you.” In addition, it can be very disheartening to find out that you are the last to know about a change. Leaders play such an important role in the effective delivery of information to their workforce. It’s important for leaders to know the right way to deliver information, in the right amount, at the right time.

Provides Open Access to Information

When employees perceive that their leader is withholding important information from them, it leads them to believe that they are not qualified or considered important enough to know certain information. Thus, we have the beginning of the phrase, “Information Is Power!”

As a leader, you can use information to convey trust and empowerment. At the same time, you are responsible for what you share, with whom, and by when. Often, the decision regarding who gets to know what is made on the “needs to know basis” theory. Often, this theory can be too restrictive. The more information an employee has, the better prepared he/she is to make decisions quickly. With the current pace of change and the increasing demands of our customers, rapid decision making is imperative. Therefore, making information accessible to as many people as possible is a competitive advantage.

A better criteria with which to judge who should receive information is as follows. As a leader, ask yourself, “Could this information in this person’s hands be harmful to our organization?” By asking this simple question, you will feel more comfortable making more information available to more people. The challenge then becomes how to keep from overloading your employees with information. The key is providing open access to information without dumping information on employees. Make your employees aware that information is available, and tell them how to access it. Communicate change as early as possible and then direct your employees to a common source where they can receive information.

If you feel that an employee is not ready to hear certain information, that may be your cue to offer development assistance to that person so that he/she can get to a point where you feel comfortable providing open access to information. Employees who are provided with open access to information are better prepared to serve their organization and their customers.

Are you strengthening trust by preparing your employees to handle more information and make better decisions? Are you building these kinds of trust-based partnerships with your employees?

Visit our blog next week to learn the next key behavior for effective Relationship Leadership.

Our last blog began the discussion on the importance of Relationship Leadership by examining the first key behavior of effective leaders: Exemplify Personal Values and Integrity. It’s true that leaders in today’s modern workforce must be able to master critical relationship skills in order to achieve success and get things done on a day to day basis.

So much of what constitutes effective relationships between leaders and their employees begins with mutual trust and respect. In order for leaders to afford their employees the kind of necessary autonomy it takes to get work done, their workforce must feel empowered to act.

Inspire Empowerment through Purpose and Influence.

Empowerment is a term that has been rejected by many since first introduced in the 1980s. It lost its luster mainly because it was thought of as an entitlement by employees. “Good” managers thought they were obligated to “empower” employees. This led to near anarchy in some organizations.

Peter Block did an excellent job of defining empowerment in his book, The Empowered Manager. Peter stressed that empowerment is a decision made by the employee, not a gift given by managers. This choice is made by each individual who decides that his/her success fully lies within his/her own responsibility. If there are factors in the organization that inhibit an individual from achieving high performance, he/she is obligated to use influence to change or remove the obstacles. Empowered employees accept the full accountability and responsibility for personal and organizational success.

Leaders can inspire their employees to choose empowerment. It begins by creating a passion for their work and the work of the organization. Last week in this blog we explained how leaders base their relationship with others on the foundation of core, shared values. Leaders must use these values to give employees meaning in their work. This creates a sense of ownership in the business and further inspires employees to use influence to continuously improve their work and the work of others.

Are you inspiring a sense of ownership and empowerment in your workforce? What are you doing to give your employees meaning and purpose in the work they are doing? Are you able to gain the benefits of providing all of your employees with the level of empowerment they need to run their part of the business?

Visit our blog next week to learn the next key behavior for effective Relationship Leadership.