Matthew Brandt

Accountability

Accountability, the most efficient way to instill organization wide performance and ensures everyone is on the same playing field. You see, in society there are classes of people, let’s face it; there just is.

Organizations are not like society however. Organizations exist for one purpose; to carry out the mission of that organization. We all have different purposes at work, but the desired outcome is the same. We exist to do “something” that in turn, has a return to organization, normally to make money and pay those employees for their efforts.

Accountability should be an organization wide mantra that is adhered to, supported and part of the cultural mindset of your organization. From top to bottom; from CEO to the custodian, being accountable both at work is a cultural application that once instilled, will begin to build productivity and returns on investment ten-fold.

Once employees understand, see and believe accountability is practiced by supervisors, leaders, and their peers, then they will follow suit. That however is sometimes difficult carry out. Some people simply don’t have it in their DNA and struggle with it every day, at no fault of their own. It’s just who they are. Those individuals we should not hire in the first place and the ones we need to root out from the masses and provide opportunities to succeed in another organization, like your competitor.

There is nothing more damaging to an organization than leaders that claim to be accountable and have expectations that those below him/her will do the same only to find in some way they do not play by those same rules. You will turn fantastic employees into the least productive, most disgruntled of any you have.

Add in a generation of up and coming Millennials and Generation Z aged employees that already have a new and unique (to you) views of organizational needs, then any failure by leaders in this venue will ensure certain disaster for your organization.