Standing Under the Arches We Build

Accountability is a hot topic in leadership and business development training today. It's also a somewhat poorly misunderstood concept. People sometimes confuse "accountability" with "responsibility," or associate accountability with shouldering the blame when something goes wrong. It's actually much broader than these simple explanations. What really rings true to me about the ancient Roman tradition is that accountability is not just limited to personal liability—it's so much bigger than that. Being accountable means standing behind—or under!--our products, our teams, and our commitment to overall excellence.

Accountability at work means taking initiative for projects, recognizing signals indicating something's going wrong, and not only owning up to but also taking action when failure occurs. Check our previous blog post for more on our thoughts about the role of accountability in teamwork.

One of my favorite metaphors for defining accountability is described by former AT&T Chairman C. Michael Armstrong: "The ancient Romans had a tradition: whenever one of their engineers constructed an arch, as the capstone was hoisted into place, the engineer assumed accountability for his work in the most profound way possible: he stood under the arch."

In his book Closing the Execution Gap: How Great Leaders and Their Companies Get Results, Richard Lepsinger suggests that a lack of accountability in the workplace causes employees to view their organizational leaders as ineffective and creates a culture of blame. He also describes that a lack of productivity is common in cultures where people aren't held accountable for their actions.

Inspired by Lepsinger's perspective on accountability, here a checklist for building a culture of accountability at work:

• Clarify expectations and check for understanding among everyone involved in a project.
• Ensure employees follow through on their commitments.
• Make sure everyone is aware of and agrees to a timetable.
• Build in checkpoints to check progress along the way.
• Build in time to correct errors as needed before the deadline.
• When problems do occur, coach employees to ask themselves these questions: What can I do now to get on track? How can I prevent this problem from happening again? What could I have done to avoid the problem?

And don't forget to ask yourself and your teams this simple but profound question: Would you stand under the arches you build?

How Accountability Affects Teamwork and Learning

"Know your audience" is the first rule of learning. When designing a learning experience, it's not only helpful to know something about learners' skills or backgrounds, but also their frame of mind. How invested are they in learning, especially if they need to work together? Do they seek solutions to challenges, or do they tend to take a more passive "wait and hope" approach?

 Recently I facilitated a workshop with a group of preschool educators. I chose the Ladder of Accountability metaphor to help guide our discussion about peer coaching and team-building.

We started with an activity in which the participants completed a simple task together. Although on the surface the exercise seemed easy to accomplish, it was actually deceptively difficult. They attempted to do the task several times together, only to discover that the result was exactly the opposite from what they expected.

The group was permitted to talk to each other to solve the challenge. It's amazing how differently people respond! Those who have not completely bought in to the experience will often make excuses, blame and complain, or just wait for someone else to figure it out. And those who are allies in the experience tend to own the situation. They seek solutions…they find constructive ways to make it happen.

So what do you do with the information you discover about people on the Ladder of Accountability? Knowing where your learners stand on the ladder will greatly inform the approach you take to build a meaningful curriculum or modify one to better suit the audience, no matter what type of learning experience you're creating.

Posing a challenging activity is a great way to find out how accountable your learners are. It's about awareness of where people are coming from. Obviously the ladder is there to be climbed. If you find yourself hanging around on a lower rung with others who make excuses or wait and hope for a solution to materialize, think about stepping up to a higher level to make more of a team effort.

I introduced a three-part process for giving peer feedback: Describe the situation, the behavior and the outcome. I was so impressed when one of the clients demonstrated her new coaching skill when she flew a paper airplane toward me. Inside it simply read "Great job Jillian." She then used the Situation, Behavior, Outcome model to tell me specifically what she liked about the training, and how she would be applying it in her job.

After the session, other participants reported that they felt emotionally engaged, that they enjoyed the physical activity as a complement to the more academic content we discussed, as well as the opportunity to practice solving a challenge together.

To me, this feedback supports an important phase in the IdeaLearning Group's process that we use to frame our curriculum: Think, Feel, Move. We believe in supporting a variety of learning approaches, from jumping right in to reading instructions first. We believe humor is an important part of the learning experience. And we understand the strong connection between movement and learning.