Workplace Accountability; Organizational Systems That Enable Accountability

Organizational System for Accountability

How does your organization approach accountability? What systems are in place to support a positive accountability culture?

You may have an accountability mindset and are developing the skills to hold others accountable, but without the right organizational systems, you won’t be successful in creating a culture of accountability.

Below are some good practices that need to be in place to set the organization up for success:

Rewarding Good Work

What happens in your organization or team when someone commits to an outcome and achieves it? Does this go unnoticed?

We don’t need to decorate a cake for every completed to-do list, but we can create systems to encourage positive accountability practices and reinforce a culture of accountability.

I know an organization with a “shout-outs” wall covered with sticky notes that were read aloud each Friday to celebrate the week’s victories (and this can be done remotely through a Slack channel!).

Communicating Objectives

As a manager, you can control your communication with your team, but does your organization have an established way to share objectives?

Cascading, or hierarchical objectives, gives everyone a high-level view of the impact on the broader organization their work has and how it’s interlinked with others.

Clearly defining goals helps support the ‘we’ mindset and show what is happening behind the tasks we assign. It also empowers employees to embrace accountability and do better toward larger objectives.

If objectives are communicated well, is performance tracked against those objectives? Performance management is a big part of accountability systems. It provides quick feedback and an easy view for managers and direct reports to celebrate victories or connect to course correct before small missteps become unmet expectations.

Role Clarity

Do the people in your organization know how they fit into the system?

Good role clarity is a system for sharing how each role fits into the whole and what is within each person’s job description. Essentially, role clarity defines what is expected of each team member and what they are responsible for.

With role clarity and buy-in from employees, everyone is empowered to look beyond what’s in front of them and see what else they can do to support others and broader team objectives.

Every role brings something unique to the table, and clarifying it creates a system where everyone can see where they fit in, why they are assigned work, and how they can apply their specialties to positively impact others.

At Lighthouse NINE Group, we work with clients to establish functional and role charters, bringing much more than a ‘job description’ to role clarity.  These define the interconnections between groups and the measures of individual and group success in the form of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).  

Good role clarity sets the stage for good workplace accountability. It empowers employees to apply their unique contribution outside their responsibility as they commit to their role and the team’s goals.

Working Towards a More Accountable Organization

There is much to be said about accountability mindset, skillset, and systems, but I hope this helps you start thinking differently about workplace accountability.

If you’re looking to work on your organization’s approach to accountability, as Lighthouse NINE Group, we provide the tools and training to set you up for success.

Reach out and connect with me on LinkedIn. Together, let’s empower one another to be our best through good workplace accountability.

Christi Scarrow

Christi Scarrow serves as Managing Partner at Lighthouse NINE Group and leads the firm’s Insights & Organizational Accountability practice. She also supports clients in the areas of Strategy, Sales & Supply Chain Effectiveness, Leadership Development and High Performing Teams. She draws on over 20 years of leadership experience in market research, business analytics, and sales.Christi works with organizations to help them create a culture of accountability and insight-based decision making. Her work and her book, Truth Warriors, helps individuals, teams and organizations to understand how they currently make decisions in order to build systems, processes and individual action plans to close the gaps between their current and desired state.For Christi, analytics is a means to achieving the desired change for clients, and she excels at turning multiple sources of information into meaningful, clear recommendations. She is a skilled facilitator, both in person and virtually. She works with retailers, manufacturers and professional services in both the corporate and not-for-profit sector.Christi and her Lighthouse NINE colleagues understand the importance of providing client-focused solutions. Christi achieves this by developing an in-depth fact driven understanding of the unique challenges and priorities of each client. She is known for being an innovative problem solver with a drive for action that achieves lasting results.

More posts by Christi