Meet Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done, and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it but Nobody did because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it.

By Lois J. Zachary, Ed.D.

This familiar old story makes the case for accountability patently clear. Accountability requires shared intention, responsibility, ownership, and commitment to action. Without these, it is easy to miss the mark and succumb to the "shoulda-coulda-woulda" phenomenon that leads to disastrous results.

Accountability is very serious business today. Board members exact added accountability. Funders and external stakeholders require more and more information. Association boards are looking internally and asking more of themselves and each other. Communication and education are central to accountability, but they only go so far when it comes to ensuring positive actions and results. The current approach to accountability encompasses much more than the traditional approach of counting numbers. It now encompasses effort, energy, and efficiency; it has become the key driver for organizational learning, performance, design, and behavior. Everyone needs to embrace the same definition of accountability in order to assure results. This requires a broader organization-wide approach to accountability, because, unfortunately, that definition isn't a pithy sentence for the minions to memorize. Rather it's a dynamic and complex ideal that all must embrace. Each organization will no doubt approach accountability differently, but as you frame the debate in your organization, here are seven key ingredients of any accountability definition.

1. Setting Goals
Goals drive organizational success. Without them, projects, initiatives and relationships are prone to drift and often become entirely rudderless. As a result of lack of direction, it becomes all but impossible to make real headway, because there is nothing in place to keep the organization on course.

Goals set the parameters that circumscribe the effort. They frame, define, and focus the work to be done, eliminate ambiguity, provide a framework for gauging progress and measuring success, and set a context for the work to be done. They also increase motivation, because they harness and focus energy and action.

The process for setting goals is evolutionary. It is accomplished on several planes, depending on the penetration of the effort desired and the complexity of the organizational structure. The initial goal setting must be implemented on the macro level. In some organizations this activity focuses on the entire business entity or on organizations within the organization. There must be alignment between the organizational goals and individual goals. As needs change over time, goals may need to be revisited and adapted to accommodate changing needs. Publishing goals minimizes the grapevine effect, clarifies intent, and affirms commitment.

2. Clarifying Expectations
Expectations are the assumptions we hold about others' intentions and behaviors. They have a direct impact on our interactions and behaviors as well. The very act of articulating expectations promotes self-accountability. It is tempting to assume that everyone is on the same page and knows what is expected once goals have been set. Whenever individuals, teams, and organizations move too quickly from goal to task without first clarifying expectations, they usually find themselves disappointed in the ultimate outcome, be it performance or results.

It is unrealistic to hope for accountability unless expectations are clarified. Too often we "dance around" setting expectations for a myriad of reasons. We perceive that laying out and/or discussing expectations will have a negative impact on others. We fear that we might undermine trust, create suspicion about intention, or appear to be too structured.

Clarifying expectations promotes individual, team, and organizational accountability. It also focuses individual and collective energy and effort. When individuals know what is required, they can self-manage better and feel a sense of ownership in meeting desired results or performance objectives. Clarifying expectations need not be heavy handed and excessively structured; rather, it should provide the scaffolding for focused action.

Agreeing on expectations is important but not sufficient to guarantee sustainable accountability. Promoting shared accountability for expectations requires adherence to a process to ensure that expectations are both met as well as individually and collectively owned.

3. Defining Roles and Responsibilities
Defining roles and responsibilities provides a mechanism to clearly assign accountability to those responsible for carrying out a task at all levels of the organization. When roles and responsibilities remain unclear, multiple untested assumptions often supplant them. The ambiguity that results leads to unintended consequences such as the following.

• Individuals do the minimum required;



• Attempts to get work done using a scattershot approach forces others to pick up the slack;



• Long hours and extra work are exacted that are not essential to obtaining the result;



• Resentment and frustration block productivity;



• Work gets completed but not as efficiently and effectively as it could have been otherwise;



• The lines of accountability become blurred.

Clear definition of roles and responsibilities promotes autonomy, ownership, and self-accountability. When individuals are confident about what it is in their control and what is not, they can step forward to accept responsibility with full knowledge of what is expected from them. Roles and responsibilities exercised out of a sense of ownership inspire commitment. Defining roles and responsibilities identifies specific benchmarks for performance and creates boundaries around the work to be done, both of which foster self-accountability.

4. Monitoring Progress and Measuring Results
It is not easy to monitor progress or measure results without having something against which to evaluate them. Setting goals, clarifying expectations, and defining roles and responsibilities provide that "something" — a frame or standard for evaluation.

Monitoring progress and measuring results go hand in hand. Monitoring progress allows us to understand "movement," what is happening as learning unfolds. Measuring results provides data points to compare against a standard and each other. Both monitoring progress and measuring results can yield formative and summative data that promote process improvement and development. Monitoring progress and measuring results is an essential accountability process for individuals, teams, and organizations that want to build their capacity to grow and improve.

Monitoring progress should take place on individual, team, department, and organizational levels. When progress is monitored personally by the individual on a day-to-day basis, it is a very powerful — even dramatic — tool for promoting learning insights and self-accountability.

There is an old saying that goes "what doesn't get measured doesn't get done." My experience is that when there is no advance planning, it doesn't get measured. Measurement is a long-term commitment that requires adequate preparation. Failure to continuously measure results detracts from the value initially created and limits an organization's ability to achieve sustainable results.

Success factors, like goals, become extremely important in deciding what to measure. Together with the goals, they frame the measurement and evaluation process. There are many ways to go about measuring success, from questionnaires to performance assessments to focus groups to key informants. Some organizations are survey-averse. You need to know your organization and what works in the culture if you are to get accurate data. Think about data already available that you can access before you collect your data.

Monitoring progress and measuring progress create value for an organization only when they are done deliberately and are carefully planned and continuously embraced. Spending adequate time to plan reaps dividends for years to come.

5. Gathering Feedback
Feedback encourages accountability in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. It, too, fosters ownership, nurtures commitment, and creates ongoing value for individuals, teams, groups, and organizations as a whole. The feedback process itself builds relationships, opens lines of communication, encourages participation, drums out resistance, engages people, and creates continuing interest and awareness. Information, insights, and learning gathered through the feedback process have tangible and immediate application. And as if that wasn't enough, regular feedback fosters a culture of continuous improvement and is the backbone of a learning organization.

Gathering feedback is both a means and an ends part of accountability. It can be a means to an end, i.e., a data-gathering tool for monitoring progress and measuring results. Or, it can stand on its own as an intrinsic part of the accountability process.

To reap its full benefit, feedback must be embraced proactively. Gathering feedback, in its broadest sense, means that the gathering is not just about amassing data but being able to use data so that it can be harvested for improvement and change. It is a looping process: learning from the feedback and integrating what is learned so that the return on the investment is clear and commitment is consolidated.

Being able to ask for feedback, provide it, receive it, accept it, and act on it is all part of the gathering process. This can happen as informally as asking an open-ended question such as, "How are we doing?" The idea here is not to wait until something goes amiss but to ask the question regularly.

Feedback loops serve as mechanisms for systemically thinking about and gathering feedback. Feedback loops promote accountability for planners and implementers, key organizational informants and participants, and organizational leaders.

6. Formulating Action Goals
Failure to act on lessons learned is a major stumbling block. When we don't act on what we learn, we block process improvement. When program champions sit on a task force, their sense of ownership, enthusiasm, and investment is high. The rose-colored glasses they don often prevent them from asking for and accepting feedback. After spending months planning and implementing a program, very few of us want to hear that we've missed the mark. But the lessons learned from such a circumstance are often more powerful than lessons learned from successes. Failure cannot be seen as an end; it must be embraced as a beginning.

Poet Antonio Machado puts it this way:

"Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt, marvelous illusion, that I had a beehive here inside my heart. And the golden bees were making white combs of sweet honey from all my old failures."

Oftentimes, however, the feedback may not point to total success or complete failure. Rather than try to claim success, it is important to take the next frequently overlooked step, which is to reflect critically on what we learn so that we can take action by formulating appropriate action goals and integrating process improvement.

7. Integrating Process Improvements
The final ingredient is actually the practice of the first six in a systematic way. Accountability is the portal to process improvement. It opens doors to action by requiring that goals are set, expectations are clarified, roles and responsibilities are defined, progress is monitored, results are measured, and feedback is continuously gathered and acted on. However, it is a demanding master. Without accountability doors remain shut to individual and organizational learning.

Too often accountability is used either tacitly or overtly as a synonym for blame. For many, the fact that it was "Everybody's job" is enough; hold Everybody accountable. The reality is, accountability should be a positive part of an organization's culture. The failure wasn't Everybody's alone; the entire organization failed Everybody and itself. The fact is Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody could have become a remarkable team if only they had taken the time to embrace the seven key processes needed to ensure that they achieved accountability.

Author Link: Lois J. Zachary, Ed.D., is president of Leadership Development Services, LLC, in Phoenix, Arizona. She can be reached at (602) 954-9934.