Accountability And Expectation Nightmares: How does it affect your business?
As businesses scale, the simplest concept rears its head in all businesses: Accountability.
If you aren’t struggling with it in your organization, I would say you are either too harsh on your current team or you might not be completely honest with yourself. In small teams, accountability is simple. Everyone is right there. You may have only a handful of people to work with and communicate with. It’s very easy to see if a ball is being dropped. As you scale, whether increase business or team members, it becomes a challenge.
How much accountability is good? How much is too little? How does it affect the culture you’ve been building for so long? Who on your team is going to complain?
Each of these will be largely dictated by the industry you are in. As you continue to grow these items will change, again and again. You will add new layers to the onion.
We have experienced our own growing pains at times and are constantly in a state of learning and developing.
Attendance, mid-day appointments, project management, etc. So how do we correct this? How do we put some form of accountability and expectations that we can run a growing business? How do we do it with current team members that are used to the “old norms”?
It’s easier said than done, however there are some core pieces that must be put in place to conquer the problem.
Creating clear expectations that can be measured is the first step in building the foundation. We live in an age where data is king. What data can you use in your current systems? Each business which has customer service, has either documented or “understood” metrics to gauge if we are doing our job right. Creating data to measure to this expectation must be implemented. We are recreating this as we speak so we can give clear expectations to our team as to what we expect and how it is measured.
Now that a measurement has been created, what are the consequences when they miss them or exceed them? There has to be both stick and carrot.
Traditionally. businesses use a “Performance Improvement Plan (PIP)” as a stick to ensure expectations are correct. I do not disagree; however, we prefer active feedback through one on ones to address shortfalls. If the problem consists, the PIP’s purpose is to move someone out. How you dictate shortfalls will largely be based on the entire team first, then the individual.
When individuals exceed (notice I said exceed not meet), the expectations they should be rewarded. Incentivization plans work great for this, and will truly show who is part of your “ A Team”. This is also a great way to structure new compensation for employees that may be topping out on the pay scale.
The bigger problem is your team adjusting to the new norm. Similar to when someone starts working out. A 5lb weight may seem heavy until their muscles are used. There is no easy solution to this and it comes down to a business decision. What every manager hopes is that the team may express initial disagreement, but then understands “it is what it is” and conforms. When individuals do not conform, the only solution is to move them out.
As business owners, our job is to run a successful business. That means adapting and adopting change in our organizations. We must be firm in our beliefs when we jump off the cliff and be quick to adjust if we aren’t landing where we need to. Change is tough on everyone but we must be willing to change. This is why one of our core values is “be willing to change”.
If you can’t change, should you be here?
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