the accountability challenge
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How to create a culture of accountability in Caribbean companies.TRANSCRIPT
The Accountability
Challenge –
The Making or Breaking
of Caribbean
Corporations
By
Francis Wade
These materials may not be reproduced, publicly
displayed, or used to create derivate products in
any form without prior written permission from:
Framework Consulting Inc.
3389 Sheridan Street, #434
Hollywood, FL 33021
954-323-2552
www.fwconsulting.com
© 2005 Framework Consulting, Inc.
All rights reserved
High-Stake Interventions
The Accountability Challenge
©2005 Copyright Framework Consulting, Inc. 2
Caribbean managers have inherited a history that is unique. While the territories that are
English speaking have a common language, common sports, overlapping tastes in music
and shared institutions such as the University of the West Indies, the legacy that most
prevails upon the workplace is that of chattel slavery (and its cousin, indentured labour.)
This was the major force that brought the vast majority of the region’s ancestors to their
respective countries.
While the legacy of slavery can be seen to have multiple effects on today’s workplace,
Framework Consulting has been focused on understanding a single effect – the inability
of executives and managers to create workplaces of high accountability. From our work
with companies in Barbados, Trinidad and Jamaica we have observed that in spite of
some cultural differences, there are also some striking similarities.
What are these similarities? We have found that executives and managers are persistently
complaining that employees refuse to take responsibility. Also, managers do not know
what to do about the problem, or how to intervene in a way that will do anything more
than make the problem worse. Lastly, they stop looking for solutions, and therefore
stunt their own skill development, long before the supply of possible answers is depleted.
This paper addresses these similarities, and offers a partial solution.
A Lack of Accountability
The first key similarity that we have noticed is in the kinds of complaints that executives
and managers have about the people that are working for them at ALL levels in the
company. While most companies have people who are very well-trained (in the technical
skills needed for the job,) managers observe that at some point in an employee’s working
career they “learn” how to stop taking initiative. A young employee who is recently
hired very quickly resorts to a mode of doing “just what I was told to do” and retreats
behind that excuse at the first opportunity.
Employees resist being accountable, even when it
appears that being accountable is in their best
interest. They are quite comfortable in “delegating
upwards” – putting the burden of decision making,
accountability and risk, squarely on the shoulders
of the manager. This behavior is widespread, and
leaves the manager with the overwhelming sense
that important decisions must be made by them, and them alone.
The effect is debilitating. Decisions are made slowly. Simple customer complaints are
resolved only after a manager is involved. Even the smallest expenditure must be
… at some point in an
employee’s working career
they “learn” how to stop
taking initiative
The Accountability Challenge
©2005 Copyright Framework Consulting, Inc. 3
approved, as only the manager can be trusted to handle purchases. Customers quickly
learn that they need to “know somebody” on the inside, as there is no way they would be
caught dead dealing with a front-line employee that they don’t know – unless they are
forced to.
Employees position themselves as “victims” and managers as “villains.” This positioning
prevents managers from doing the job of making the difference that they are really being
paid to make. Management becomes something (or someone) to resist, and leadership
turns into a role to deride.
This workplace habit probably has its genesis in
slavery, where this attitude was a useful one when
it came to a slave’s primary goal in life: staying
alive while doing as little as possible. Translated
into modern terms, it means: keep the job and the
paycheck as long as can,, but do as little as possible
to prevent being fired. A workplace survey in the U.S. showed that some 40% of
employee were “doing as little as possible to keep their jobs.” Our experience tells us
that in some Caribbean companies, that number may run as high as 60%.
Not Knowing How to Create Accountability
The second key similarity is related to the first. Managers do not know what to do about
the problem of lack of accountability.
The first option that managers consider is a version of what can be called “Getting on
Bad” with the employees they are attempting to transform. Force, combined with fear, is
used to get people moving into action. By “showing them that you mean business” and
“getting raw,” managers find that they are able to make things happen, at least for a
while. This is not as one-sided as it sounds. Expatriate managers to the Caribbean have
reported to us that they are quite surprised to discover that some employees seem to
welcome this approach … and will only respond to it.
That this is the first technique used is not a surprise, as it closely echoes the approach
used by slave masters during the 300 year history of slavery. Force was used in much the
same way to generate a fear of further punishment. One of the cruel practices of slavery
was to publicly flog a disobedient slave while forcing other slaves to watch, especially
the younger ones. This was a way to get people to do what you could not get them to do
by any other known method..
…some 40% of employees
were “doing as little as
possible to keep their jobs.”
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©2005 Copyright Framework Consulting, Inc. 4
At the same time, we’ve observed that some managers use milder variations of violent
and forceful action, including manipulation, bribery and cajoling. While these techniques
do not generally involve or engage the same level of fear, they also do damage to the
working environment.
At the other extreme, this history of violence is so very alive for some managers that they
resolve to do nothing rather than to risk a confrontation that may be seen as an attack.
They will do anything to avoid a conflict, and prefer to leave an employee in the dark,
and to have the organization’s results falter. This avoidance leads to a lack of
productivity, which too many good managers attempt to overcome by just putting in more
and more hours and effort. Others just keep poor performers in place, and work hard to
create ways to work around the person. The result is a sense of overwhelm on the part of
the manager.
These two options – violence, or withdrawal – seem to the manager to be the only ones
available, and while this does not stop the manager from complaining to his or her peers,
friends, family, it does not translate into effective action.
It is as if the manager becomes trapped in the role of a benevolent dictator, very much in
keeping with the preferred style of the slave masters of old.
A Lack of Skill Development
The third similarity comes from the manager believing that they are stuck in a bad
situation, with no good options. Either they become a tyrant, or they find a way to avoid
the situation indefinitely, or they fire the employee. They believe that they are powerless,
and a victim of their employee’s bad attitude.
Our observation, however, is that when compared with the best managers that we have
seen around the world, the average Caribbean manager is also relatively unskilled, and
not engaged in the ongoing development of their skills.
In other words, they have stopped looking for better and more successful techniques for
intervening in their employees’ performance. Most often, they do not have managers
with whom they work that have developed superior skills for creating successful
interventions. They have often not seen a clear and workable alternative to force or
withdrawal, and if they do happen to see effective skills in action, they chalk it up to the
manager’s personality, disposition or experience (none of which they can possess in short
order.)
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©2005 Copyright Framework Consulting, Inc. 5
Sometimes, even when a firm such as ours is
brought in to assist, as a group they start out
agreeing that the problem lies with the
employees, and the solution is available only to
the gifted few. They themselves have nothing to
do with the lack of accountability they
experience.
What they miss is that conducting successful confrontations is a matter of skill, much in
the same way that executing a square cut or dribbling a hockey ball with a curved hockey
stick are also skills. They cannot see that these skills can be learned, practiced, perfected
and taught to others – even by them.
They also miss out on a basic truth: accountability is not taught or created directly. It is
impossible to coach someone effectively by telling them to “be more accountable.”
Instead, our experience shows that companies that experience high accountability have
managers who are very skilled at conducting critical confrontations around performance.
Want more accountability? Look to see what confrontations are being avoided at all
levels, in every direction – downwards, upwards and between peers.
When managers do realize that a culture of accountability can be created, starting with
them learning new skills, then the real work of transforming the organization can actually
start. Managers can learn how to use the best
methods available to successfully conduct
confrontations that are necessary, but produce
positive results.
Here at Framework, our research has turned up
effective principles and methods that allow a
manager to directly observe his or her own
inability to confront. Through the use of video
taped feedback and customized cases, managers
receive group input from their peers and trained
facilitators on how well they do in producing a result in a fictions, but critical role-play.
They can compare, for the first time, their performance in these difficult conversations
against the ideal, as defined by state-of-the art techniques of listening, observing and
giving feedback. They can then try out alternative approaches, informed by the
principles they are learning, and receive coaching on how well the new approaches work.
In a safe environment that is experimental, the learning is rapid. Managers leave the
course armed with a new skill that they have just begun to practice, and are able to
What they miss is that
conducting successful
confrontations is a matter of
skill
… our experience shows that
companies that experience
high accountability have
managers who are very
skilled at conducting critical
confrontations around
performance.
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©2005 Copyright Framework Consulting, Inc. 6
confront any kind of behaviour they deem sub-par or unacceptable. With these new
skills, they have empowered themselves to create cultures of accountability within their
organizations. It represents a start in overcoming the influence of hundreds of years of
resistant work habits learned by Caribbean people to survive the horrors of slavery.
3389 Sheridan Street #434
Hollywood, FL 33021 954-323-2552
www.fwconsulting.com