On Your Bookshelf: How Did That Happen? Holding People Accountable for Results the Positive, Principled Way

By Andrea Newell (Grand Rapids. Michigan)

Companies are struggling with how to facilitate true accountability within their organizations, seeing it as a path to recovery from the current economic crisis and an important component in a plan to stave off future disasters. In their new book, How Did That Happen? Holding People Accountable for Results the Positive, Principled Way, workplace accountability experts Roger Connors and Tom Smith build upon the concepts in their two previous books—The Oz Principle, which focused on personal accountability, and The Journey to the Emerald City, which addressed how to create an accountable culture— to show how accountability within an organization is essential to its success.

The first half of the book shines a spotlight on the importance of the leadership role. Whether supervisor or CEO, the reader is asked to take an honest look at her leadership style, relationships with the people on whom she depends for results, and her effectiveness in achieving the results she wants. The authors emphasize that, before a manager can promote personal accountability in her organization, she has to embrace it herself, and that the whole group, including leadership, shares responsibility for not achieving the desired results.

Two Steps for Defining Accountability Expectations in Your Organization

Defining expectations is crucial to fostering personal accountability in subordinates and other colleagues. The authors have created the Accountability Sequence, a systematic approach to establishing accountability in an organization. The Sequence is divided into two components: the Outer Ring, which zeroes in on leadership behavior and the importance of establishing clear expectations, and the Inner Ring, which addresses unmet expectations and defines the four main causes (poor motivation, inadequate training, too little personal accountability, ineffective culture) and the four solutions (motivation, training, culture, accountability). The authors also advise that one needs to step back and look at accountability not just within one’s organization, but also of all the stakeholders in your “Expectations Chain,” beginning with vendors and continuing all the way down to customers.

Using examples from their twenty years in accountability consulting, events in history, and even the varied responses to natural disasters, Connors and Smith show how unmet expectations, poor assumptions, and a lack of accountability lead to failure time and time again. On the other side, Connors and Smith have an equal number of success stories that illustrate the power of positive accountability throughout an organization. Although most of the client names have been changed, readers will recognize companies like Sprint, figures such as Henry Kissinger and Jack Welch, and events such as Hurricane Katrina, Apollo 13 and the Mars Orbiter in the examples put forth by the authors.

The Importance of Positive Accountability

Each chapter concludes with exercises the reader can apply to herself and her organization. The reader can learn whether she is a “Coerce and Compel” personality or a “Wait and See” type and find out the strengths and inevitable drawbacks to both styles of leadership. As she follows the steps in the sequence, she will learn to watch for behavioral and non-verbal clues from her colleagues, identify what personality types they indicate, and resolve the issues specific to each.

In these difficult times, when managers are asked to do more with less, many forget the importance of good relationships, motivation, praise, and pride in a job well done. Woven throughout the text is the encouragement to respect one’s colleagues, treat them fairly, help them develop a sense of ownership, and give them the support they need to meet clearly defined expectations. The authors put forth example after example of how positive accountability throughout an organization translated into better customer service and satisfaction, higher-quality products, higher profits, and, in health care, lives saved.

Accountability, seen by many as the panacea for the current economic woes, will continue to increase in importance for the business community. Managers can choose to view accountability in a limited way or they can see it, as the authors wrote in The Oz Priniciple, as “a personal choice to rise above one’s circumstances and demonstrate the ownership necessary for achieving desired results – to See It, Own It, Solve It, and Do It.” How Did That Happen? is timely and engaging, with vivid and relevant examples. Improving relationships and encouraging personal responsibility will only serve to benefit organizations at a time when managers, employees and customers alike need positive results and success.