responsibility Archives -

Part 1 in a 3-part series

What do we mean by accountability? In a recent post, I suggested that it’s silly to hold someone responsible for fulfilling a promise when they never actually made a promise. After all, request + acceptance = promise.

Let’s connect this to an insightful take on the same question provided by Mark Graban of Lean Blog. He suggests that it’s unfair to hold accountable someone who isn’t responsible and quotes Deming’s advice to “fix the processes, not the people.”

Can we hold nurses and other staff accountable for not always following proper hand hygiene procedures when coming in and out of patient rooms?

Let’s say the foam canisters are empty outside a few rooms in a row (something I’ve seen recently). We can’t hold the nurses accountable. This is a system problem. “Writing up” or punishing the nurses would be counterproductive. We need to ask why the canisters are empty? Is there somebody to hold accountable for not restocking the canisters? Maybe not – what if it’s a bad process, where there’s no “standardized work” and no clear cut assignment of who refills the canisters (“everybody?”).

When it comes to building accountability in organizations, what differentiates good from great? Many leaders wrestle with this question. The wrestling typically sounds like this: Why don’t people follow through on their commitments? I don’t like to micromanage, but how else can I ensure things get done?

I love hearing these questions for two reasons. First, they reveal a commitment on the leader’s part to managing effectively and delivering results. It appears as a complaint, but behind the complaint is this deeper commitment to excellence. Second, there is a body of management theory and practice devised specifically to handle this situation. It’s called promise-based management or speech act theory. The basic idea is that human beings make things happen through language. Words don’t just describe reality; they actually bring it into being. There are particular ways to talking—conversations for action—that are the vehicles through which we act. If we want to become more competent at such conversations, it helps to understand the key elements that comprise them. We call these “speech acts.” [Read more…] about Accountability requires authentic promises