How to Improve Accountability & Capture Lost Profit

Whether we can tie it directly to a profit & loss statement or not, the costs any organization incurs when no one is held accountable are significant. Quite honestly, those costs can be so high and can spread across so many areas of a business that it’s almost impossible to imagine leaders not recognizing the need for more accountability - almost impossible but certainly not completely impossible because it happens quite often!

As we looked at how high turnover and constant recruiting kill profitability, I shared some of what I experienced during the last year and a half I was with a large manufacturing company. I mentioned hiring over 225 new employees for that organization during that time, 150 of which were for just one job title! Oh, and there were only a total of 150 positions within that job title across all shifts in the facility. Just in case you’re not tracking with the math, that translated to 100% turnover in that position within 18 months; a position that played a critical role in the overall quality of the product customers purchased from us!

I could easily tie that mess, in one way or another, back to every single profitability killer we’ve worked through here. For our purposes right now, I’ll only share how much a lack of basic accountability contributed to it all…

For years and years, many of the best and most efficient team members in that role could meet their daily production numbers for an entire shift with an hour or more to spare in the day. Over time, the culture had become such that those folks would spend the remainder of their day casually roaming around. Since they “had their time in” for the day and they weren’t doing too much to call attention to themselves, this was accepted. Like in any workplace, the most tenured employees set the tone for everyone else; not just for overall performance, they also set the tone for what is perceived as being OK. This was no different! A practice that was originally done by just a handful of the most proficient workers because more of a rule than an exception.

When a new engineering manager who was looking to make a name for himself arrived, he wasted no time in assigning his team to re-do the hourly rates for just about every piece of product the folks in those roles would touch. I’m not about to pretend that this wasn’t necessary, but the approach left a lot to be desired! Over twenty years ago, I learned a valuable lesson on communication from a veterinarian. He told me that he could kill my dog but tell me the right way and I’d bring every dog I ever had back to him. He also said that he could save my dog’s life but tell me the wrong way and I’d never bring a dog to him again. That same advice applied to how the process changes were rolled out…

In spite of all that, and even with the legitimate discrepancies in the new production expectations, very few team members changed what had become a routine practice of frequently visiting other workstations. The lack of accountability came into play with how the majority of our supervisors and managers chose to handle it. Rather than simply addressing each team member who was somewhere other than where they should be, doing anything but what they were being paid for, the standard approach for dealing with this was to issue disciplinary action to anyone who fell below a set productivity number for the month. If they didn’t bring their three-month average above that number the next month, a second written warning was issued. If that trend continued for two more months, that individual would receive a final written warning and a termination.

I’m definitely not making excuses for anyone who wasn’t meeting expectations. Quite frankly, the majority of the productivity numbers were very achievable! However, there were more than a few issues that could occasionally contribute to someone missing their daily quota - but all of which could be written off if procedures were followed. This still created a tremendous amount of turmoil and led to quite a few long term employees losing their jobs over the course of several incredibly tense months.

Had there been a culture of accountability, the supervisors and managers would have addressed any team member they saw out of their work area, immediately, and every single time they saw them! I encouraged exactly that over and over and over again - to no avail. By not holding those team members accountable for the one thing that was directly contributing to them not meeting production expectations, those supervisors and managers were in fact condoning that behavior and contributing to all of the other issues! If they had addressed this behavior directly, with simple warnings to start then progressive disciplinary measures if it continued, anyone intent on repeating unacceptable behavior would have been dealt with in days or weeks rather than months - with a lot less drama and finger pointing between departments!

Don’t misunderstand me here: I’m sharing an experience I lived through. I am not placing blame. I’m convinced that this was truly a matter of not understanding how to hold those team members accountable. I don’t believe those supervisors or managers had ever been provided with the tools they needed to maintain high expectations and balance their candor with care when they had tough conversations - and I know they’re not the only ones who struggle with this so that’s exactly what we’ll do as we wrap up this look at how a lack of accountability kills profitability!

We Don’t Have to Pick a Fight…

Strangely enough, my emphasis on addressing specific behaviors that are in direct conflict with expected performance standards often seem to be interpreted as insistence on throwing the proverbial baby out with that bathwater… Many supervisors, managers, or even casual readers of some of the work I put out assume that I’m advocating firm and immediate disciplinary action, up to and including termination, every single time someone missteps without any consideration for the reason. In fact, I was recently accused of having “supported the woke culture” with my views on holding people accountable. Ugh, OK…

While I’m most certainly not suggesting that a leader’s only approach to improving accountability and capturing the profit that’s killed when no one is being held accountable is in using swift and stern disciplinary measures, there are indeed times where that does need to happen. Quite frankly though, it shouldn’t be a knee-jerk reaction. One of the most effective ways I’ve ever seen for building a culture of accountability is by simply having a direct conversation addressing the behavior in question.

Notice I said the behavior in question rather than the individual responsible for the behavior… Don’t misunderstand me here, this isn’t where we call the entire team together to talk about the issue as a group and consider it done. I’ve been in those groups more than a few times and that only serves as an effective way of pissing off the people who were doing their jobs. As leaders, we have to address unacceptable behavior with the individual directly, one-on-one. In doing that though, the best results I’ve ever seen have come from isolating what they did separately from who they are as an individual. This should never be a personal attack!

Unfortunately, I’ve seen far too many folks in leadership roles (team leads, supervisors, managers, or whatever title a company places on them) avoid having these direct conversations until they’re completely fed up, at which point they blow their top! Fingers get pointed, accusations are made, character is questioned; you know the routine… And most of that - if not all - could have been avoided by addressing the behavior in question right away, before tempers flared. Even in isolating a specific behavior that’s missing the mark, we’d do well to follow The Platinum Rule by addressing it in terms that matter most to the individual rather than resorting to the “because I said so” approach.

When we take that level of leadership responsibility, showing our teams that we truly care about their performance and that we’re willing to do anything in our power to help them through any issues that may be contributing to the poor behavior we’re addressing, we can maintain a high level of accountability while still showing how much we value the individual. Make no mistake though, even when doing everything just right, there will still be times where additional steps are required. If we’ve addressed the issue - both calmly and directly, provided any support possible to resolve it, and our team member continues down the same path, we’ll likely have no other option than to work through the steps in our progressive disciplinary policy. This isn’t usually the first step I suggest because we’re dealing with people. And even if we care nothing for the individual, turnover and recruiting are both profitability killers that we’ve addressed… But if we don’t maintain accountability, we’re allowing the expectations to drop for our entire team and we’re losing their respect in the process!

Set the Expectation, Maintain Accountability, & Provide Support!

I’ll say it one last time as we close this look at capturing the profitability that’s killed when no one is held accountable: accountability isn’t all about cracking the ole whip! In fact, the most effective leaders I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with or even studying from a distance were never the ones who made the decision to administer any kind of disciplinary action to someone on their team who wasn’t performing as expected. The best leaders I’ve ever known did everything in their power to avoid those steps but, when their hands were forced, they most certainly did take the necessary action.

I know what you’re thinking, “Hold on, Wes, you just said they didn’t make the decision to discipline folks. And in the very next sentence you said they did discipline folks. Which is it?”

Effective leaders DO NOT make the decision to issue disciplinary action but they absolutely do hold their team members accountable for choosing to use behavior that warrants that disciplinary action. That said, I’ve seen some of the best leaders I’ve ever worked with really struggle as they prepared to deliver a tough conversation that would have a negative impact on someone’s career -  but they still did it; compassionately, candidly, and consistently with how they held every other team member accountable to the same expectations. But that was just a part of what made them effective leaders!

As I mentioned before, holding someone accountable doesn’t have to turn into a fight… Truth be told, it should be anything but that. If we’ve maintained clear expectations and accountability along the way, a conversation around accountability will be calm and EXPECTED. The majority of situations that reach a boiling point only get there because the person with leadership responsibility has chosen repeatedly not to address what they should have been addressing all along! The best leaders who maintain high levels of accountability and have teams that routinely exceed expectations are not only the ones who address issues immediately, they’re also the ones who work directly with the individual to identify any kind of additional support they can provide to avoid ever having to address that issue (or anything similar) ever again.

Those leaders do indeed create a culture of high accountability within their teams, but they also earn a tremendous amount of engagement and loyalty from their team members because their actions show how much they’re willing to invest in those team members’ success. I won’t bother asking if you understand how much doing that impacts this particular profitability killer… I’m sure you get it. I’m also sure you can see how building this kind of accountability into your culture can help address many of the other profitability killers we’ve looked at leading up to this point. 

With all this to work from, there are two more things that I’ve seen kill profitability for far too many organizations: how people are trained and how people are promoted. We’ll address both of those soon - but not in that order…