When you think of ‘accountability’ — what is the first thing that comes to mind?

… Breathing down someone’s back in case they aren’t doing what you think they should be?

… Colleagues completing activities they said they would?

… Tracing a set of actions— effective or ineffective— back to a specific person, process, or device?

… Committing to an outcome while being flexible (and having the flexibility) to discover the means of achieving it?

… A team of individuals who have agreed on pursuing a goal and are doing whatever it takes to achieve it.

Whatever your definition is— your accountability equivalence— the common intent of having accountability in the workplace can be summarized as follows:

A goal (or goals) that people within a company:

Take responsibility for achieving, and
Feel intrinsically motivated to achieve— all within the limited parameters of time, money, and other resources.

Creating a strongly accountable team or workforce is easier in theory than practice. Especially if:

The goal isn’t clearly defined and can frequently change, such as in early-stage startups when it is easy to lose sight of what matters, especially when running rapid experiments concurrently.
Team members don’t believe that they can generate actions to produce those meaningful consequences (i.e., Mastery of cause and effect).
People’s criteria (intrinsic motivators) aren’t fulfilled within the company’s goals and required activities. You can’t force people to do anything against their own will. Yes, you can strongly encourage and discourage certain behaviors. However, ‘enforcing’ accountability is an illusion— you must inspire it.

In this post, we share the 5-Questions (Our Accountability Frame) that can inspire and encourage accountability— one that works with human nature rather than against it. The Accountability Frame can be used when addressing someone 1:1, addressing a group (1:many), and working with ourselves more importantly. While the frame may appear to be prescriptive, it is incredibly flexible when put in practice, helping you, your reports, and colleagues:

Identify what needs to be done and why (positive and negative ramifications).
Suggest modifications to activities via discussion to get people’s buy-in. People are more committed to an outcome or set of activities if their input is included.
Help the other party identify what resources or assistance they need (or what roadblocks need to be removed).
Anticipate consequences— positive or negative— if any party does not fulfill their commitment.
Form a strong contract of commitment between stakeholders involved.

Each question in the frame enriches one another. Furthermore, one question alone can be effective, too— we encourage you to try the frame out, adjust it to your liking, and discover what works for you!

Accountability Frame: 5-Questions

1. WHAT key, high-priority activities need to be done today/this week?

This question forces the brain to serialize activities from high importance to low importance and within a specific timeframe. Typically, the human-brain serializes activities based on numerous factors, including perceived ease of completion, positive or negative impact (consequences), monetary cost, and obligation to other team members (peer dynamics).

2. WHY do these activities need to be done?

This question helps clarify the criteria people use to determine why those activities are important. This is important because what one person considers important might be of low importance to another. A simple example, increasing sales might be of importance for a sales leader. However, a customer success leader might find it more important to allow key product features to catch-up, so that customer retention is high.

(An alternate question you can ask: “What good thing will come from completing those activities effectively”)

3. HOW might these activities impact— whether positively or negatively— the important aspects of our company?

This question services to understand the consequences of inaction, effective action, and ineffective action, especially for the company. People are typically motivated by a combination of possible gain (upside) and possible pain (downside) — making both explicit will help generate motive-for-effective-action.

4. What RESOURCES or assistance will you need to carry out these activities?

First, effective accountability presupposes autonomy— helping people craft their unique means of achieving a specific outcome and positioning yourself as a resource to them. Second, accountability in a workplace exists within certain limits or bounds. One of these is resources. The more you can provide support or assistance, the more you create the psychological safety needed for human beings to perform. This question also forces people out of ‘siloed thinking’ that creates an unnecessary psychological burden— not all people have an instinct to reach for additional help and resources to complete their activities.

5. IF I [[insert commitment]]…. WILL you [[insert commitment]]… by …[[date]]?

This question does two things: 1) Invites others to partake in a social contract of commitment, and 2) Commits them to complete a particular set of activities and outcomes by a specific place in time (date). Social contracts help stoke a common human motivator— we generally don’t like to let important people in our lives down, especially when they are intentionally trying to help us achieve our goals.