I once worked for a leader who led by fear. He used fear to control people around him instead of trusting them and inspiring them to do great things. The result was a culture where people hid the truth; because of fear of being called out in front of their peers in an embarrassing way or losing their job, they would hide problems. No one wanted to take responsibility for fear of repercussions. No one was accountable and no one wanted to talk about it.
How many times have you wished accountability at your organization was one of its strong points? Maybe it is one of your strong points and you want to make sure it stays that way.
No matter what the reason, accountability is only successful if we have effective communication. Improving communication in the workplace is impossible without first building a culture of transparency and responsibility. Trust is essential for effective workplace communication. There can be no trust without a feeling of genuineness, collaboration, and responsibility among your team members, partners, and customers.
In a transparent and accountable organization, work is driven by collaboration, not competition. Employees freely share knowledge with each other for the benefit of the team, rather than saving information to share at strategic times for personal advancement or reward. As a result, our team is comprised of dependable, empowered employees who take initiative, propose new ideas without fear, support one another, respect management, own their mistakes, and take pride in their successes.
Transparency creates trust, and that trust creates an environment in which people are more likely to be honest, share ideas and knowledge, and collaborate towards common goals. When associates are given ownership and responsibility through inclusion and involvement in business projects, they tend to feel acknowledged and content. As a result, they respond with loyalty to the team and organization. When colleagues are encouraged to speak up, fears are addressed effortlessly and become second nature. Ideas flow freely with less reservation to share, and solutions are reached faster. Sharing concerns early can help us discover problems before they escalate into major issues.
Joshua Freedman gives us four checkpoints of accountable communication:
1. “Am I hiding?” is a reminder to push yourself and others to identify the specific details of the commitment — often called “rules of engagement,” “deliverables,” or “conditions of satisfaction.” In practice, this might sound like, “I am not 100% clear on what you want me to agree to — let’s talk through the specifics.” Or, “Let me repeat back what I hear you asking.” The words you use are not so important as your intention to be clear. Sometimes people will be rude or tactless in the name of clarity, “I’m just being direct,” they’ll say to themselves. Most often, this kind of behavior is just another way of hiding. Some people hide from clarity through shyness, some people hide through roughness, neither works.
2. “Am I hedging?” asks you to either make a commitment or not — there is not middle ground to clear commitment. If you are not ready to commit, say, “Right now, my answer is no,” or “I will think about it,” or “I’d like to discuss this again in 24 hours.” Most people say, “I’ll try,” when they mean, “No, but I don’t want to let you down,” or “This is a low priority for me.” If you say, “I’ll try,” it leaves wiggle room a mile wide. If you intend to leave wiggle room, then saying, “I’ll try” is effective. You just have to be careful because it’s totally ambiguous; you might mean, “I’m going to commit in a moment,” or you might mean, “Not in a hundred years!” — how are other people going to know? They’ll make assumptions about what you mean by, “try,” you’ll make assumptions about what they heard, and you will have a muddle.
3. “Am I “making it ok”?” If you are “making it ok” when someone fails in their commitment, you are reducing accountability. If that’s what you intend to do, perhaps because you know they’re just learning, or having a difficult time, then “making it ok” is fine. Otherwise, tell them you are not satisfied and you ask for redress. When they give an excuse, you empathically listen and kindly, firmly negotiate a new agreement. This is a foreign language to many people, it seems uncomfortable and “not nice” to confront someone with their failure to follow through. On the other hand, is it “nice,” to let someone break their word to you and then lie about your real feelings about that? Discomfort is not bad! Discomfort and remorse are important teachers, and when you take those away from people because you don’t like “making them uncomfortable,” you take away their learning. At the same time, remember that people don’t learn under threat — so you have to carefully watch how much you push people. The balance is the point of the last checkpoint.
4. “Am I supporting learning?” is an essential reminder about the real purpose of accountability — growing. And forgiveness is an essential nutrient for growth. Every moment, we each have the chance to practice our skills and get better — the goal is to be conscious and intentional, not to be perfect. I make mistakes, you make mistakes, and others do to. Life is complicated, events occur that we could not predict, and caring people shift their priorities to meet the changing landscape. Sometimes you consciously need to leave wiggle room so people can save face, sometimes you conscious break one of the other three rules. The point is to do this intentionally rather than habitually. You can choose to be clear and accountable as well as flexible, generous, and caring! Just keep practicing.
Perhaps the best way to insure communication and accountability go hand in hand is to lead by example. If you make transparency, communication, and accountability one of your strong points, you are sure to realize other benefits that will strengthen your organization.
