Posts

Increasing Accountability to Achieve Breakthrough Performance

jerrytice@appalachiangrp.com — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

For more than two decades now, my colleagues and I have worked with companies to help them improve their execution at the frontline - i.e. on the floor, in the cubical, or wherever work is accomplished. We profess no particular expertise in any industry and yet, without fail, we have been able to achieve significant gains in productivity, efficiency, yields, safety, quality, or whatever metric our clients say is the most important to their bottom line. 20% - 30% gains are minimal. [...]

Telling your boss what he wants to hear – an American Disease

jerrytice@appalachiangrp.com — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

During one of the recent hurricanes in the Gulf Coast Region of the US, one of my clients had major damage to their facilities. So much so that they had to replace all the siding on a very large structure before they could resume operations. The contractors they brought in all told them that it would take 3 months to do the job. So our client decided to do the job internally. They brought in a couple of project managers from other parts of the organization and hired hundreds of constructi [...]

The Great American Accountability Breakdown of 2008

jerrytice@appalachiangrp.com — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

That's what I'm calling it anyway. This financial mess that we have found ourselves in as a country. It is a pure breakdown in the Accountability Cycle across all sectors of our country - Business, Government, Personal, and Social. The expectations were set - I loan you money to buy a home, you pay me back. Never mind that the expectations were unrealistic - Home prices will continue to climb forever, you only have to pay interest until the balloon payment hits and then we will refi [...]

Breakdowns in the Organizational Accountability Cycle

jerrytice@appalachiangrp.com — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Is the Accountability Cycle broken in your organization? It is in most organizations. Not at all levels, and not with every individual, but in every organization that I have worked with there has been a significant breakdown in their accountability cycle overall. Don't even get me started with the country in general and the resulting mess we have going on in our financial institutions. I'll do my best to confine my tirade to corporate America and specifically to their ability to effe [...]

Another unintended consequence of using the wrong measures

jerrytice@appalachiangrp.com — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0100

A post by Guy Kawasaki reminded me of another unintended consequence of using the wrong measures (see the Unintended Consequences post from 5/15). Actually, Guy was commenting on a video of Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point) discussing the pits falls of today's hiring practices. Using the wrong criteria in your selection process could lead to disastrous results. With today's technology, we are in data overload. For many, many things, we can have so much data available [...]

Accountability in the Workplace Tip #4 – Goals and Expectations

jerrytice@appalachiangrp.com — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Setting SMART Goals and Clear Expectations are an essential part of the process of achieving higher levels of accountability with your peers and employees. Goals must be determined before expectations can be set and Expectations have to be set before someone can be held accountable for meeting them. Often we use the terms Goals and Expectations interchangeably. This happens most often when expectations are implied during the goal setting process. For example, when setting the goal to reduce e [...]

Accountability in the Workplace Tip #3

jerrytice@appalachiangrp.com — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0100

In this article, we will be focusing on the initial steps to begin changing the behaviors that lead to a higher level of accountability. For this article, we will assume that you are the official leader of this group; i.e. you are the boss. Being the boss makes it much easier to drive behavior changes but that does not mean that you cannot do it if you are not the boss. It just takes longer and you must think more strategically. We will cover tips for the non-boss later on in this series. We [...]

Accountability in the Workplace Tip #2

jerrytice@appalachiangrp.com — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

To recap, the first tip for raising accountability in the workplace was about you setting the example for your peers and employees. Before you can expect people to do what you ask of them, you have to show a willingness to do the same.

The next tip is about communication.

Today's workforce is much different from the workforce of past decades. Today's workforce will not blindly follow along just because the boss said to. Some say this is due to a higher education in general. W [...]

Accountability and Performance Management - Tip #1

jerrytice@appalachiangrp.com — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Tip #1 for Raising Accountability in the workplace

In most X step programs the first step is always the most difficult, until you get to the next step of course. All steps in correcting any major life issue are tough steps because they involve lifestyle changes. This is true whether you are trying to quit smoking, lose weight, or what ever. The same is true with raising accountability in your work place. It involves lifestyle changes. YOU have to think and act differently. That's right [...]

Raising Awareness of Accountability in the Workplace

jerrytice@appalachiangrp.com — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

The mission of this blog is to get more people talking about accountability in the workplace and in our organizations in general. I am happy to report success, even if it is only one more person. Over the last few days Halogen Software’s Human Resources Adviser and official blogger - Dave has published a series of articles about accountability (even better, he mentioned me - Thanks Dave). To read the articles in full click here: article 1, article 2, article 3. Now of course the article [...]

“Oh, it’s you.”

jerrytice@appalachiangrp.com — Fri, 30 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

On a flight Tuesday I was reading the chapter on formal presentations in Ford Harding’s book - Rain Making when I came across the section entitled “How you say it is as important as what you say.” The example that Ford uses is the three words “Oh, it’s you.” He shows how those three words can communicate many very different messages depending on the tone, volume, pitch and other verbal and non-verbal inflections used.

This reminded me of an episode t [...]

Personal Accountability

jerrytice@appalachiangrp.com — Thu, 29 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

A few weeks ago I was having a discussion with several clients about accountability, expectations and follow-up. The clients were Rick, the site manager, and his top two department managers, Lucy and Ethel (all fictitious names of course). Both Lucy and Ethel were lamenting on the fact that even though they told people what they wanted done, much of it never seemed to get done without constant follow-up and reminders. They both felt that they should not have to follow-up as often. Ethel made [...]

Expectations vs. Goals

jerrytice@appalachiangrp.com — Thu, 22 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

In the Performance Management field we tend to use the words Goals and Expectations somewhat interchangeably. We talk about setting Stretch Goals, SMART Goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable/Agreed to, Realistic, timely), Personal Goals, and on, and on. We tend to shy away from talking about setting expectations. This is due to the more negative perception around the word expectation than that of goals. No one likes to be told what to do. This is what happens when a manager sets an expectat [...]

Expectations Article

jerrytice@appalachiangrp.com — Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

I ran across a great article today entitled Setting Expectations by Peggy L. McNamara on the WomenTodayMagazine.com site.

In the article Peggy makes 3 key points:

State your expectations on a regular basis - not once or twice a year.Follow-up and hold people accountable.Realize that holding people accountable is not dictatorship and that not everyone will agree. So sharing a bit of your vision and why it is important may be required from time to time.

She goes on to discuss how to con [...]

Is Accountability a Performance Management Issue - part 2

jerrytice@appalachiangrp.com — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

In the first post on this issue I ended with the fact that very few of the experts writing about Performance Management or the vendors hawking consulting advice or software talk about accountability in the open. They talk about Goals, and other non-threatening aspects of Performance Management. This also applies to the words associated with accountability - expectations, responsibility, consequences, and confrontation. I think this is a mistake and a missed opportunity for both groups.

Measuring Stuff

jerrytice@appalachiangrp.com — Sun, 18 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Why do we measure things? Especially as it relates to the performance of things and people? The first page of the newspaper (I’m showing my age) that most men turn to is the sports page. We want to know how well our favorite teams and players performed. We can recite from memory stats on our favorite players going back years. We review, analyze and discuss the previous day’s game for hours with anyone that will listen. We say things like _______ was off his game. He should have be [...]

Unintended Consequences

jerrytice@appalachiangrp.com — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

As everyone in business knows – if you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it. But what happens if you are measuring the wrong thing? Well obviously it can drive the wrong result. Worse still is that it may drive exactly the result you hoped it would, but it drives it way too far or drives other undesirable results along with it that are not seen until something hits the fan. In nearly every one of our consulting engagements we work [...]

Is Accountability a Performance Management Issue?

jerrytice@appalachiangrp.com — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

I was recently asked by Kellye Whitney, Managing Editor for Talent Management Magazine, if I thought that Accountability was a Performance Management issue. This was in response to an unabashedly unsolicited pitch for a series of articles in her wonderful magazine. While most of my pitches were dismissed the one about the loss of accountability being American businesses’ greatest threat did intrigue her.

Just what the world needs - Another consultant who thinks he has something new to say.

I’m sure that nothing I have to say is new by any means. And I won’t pretend in these posts that I know any more than any other management consultant and the truth is that I probably know a lot less than many. But I also know that the messages that I plan to address need to be said again and again until people get it. Especially people who [...]