Category Archives: Managed Conversations

Eight Game Changing Ideas – Reflections on Games People Play at Work

Posted on April 7, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Assigning and managing work tasks involves some well-worn “games people play”.  If you look closely, you discover these games can interfere with efficiently accomplishing the task-activity.  Here are 8 ways to use simple task management to change the games, increase commitment and boost performance.

The term “game changer” is in vogue and there is a great buzz surrounding this idiom.  What does this term mean and what situation, term, idea or person qualifies as being a real game-changer?  For this article I will use the term literally by describing the Old game and the New game.  Anyone can debate the significance of what constitutes a change, but I will be as definitive as possible about what game is being changed.

The context for these ideas revolves around the “games people play” with each other about getting stuff done in an enterprise:

—  how tasks are assigned and collaborated upon,

—  how customers and vendors work with each other,

—  how project managers relate to their team, and

—  how leaders lead and followers follow.

The eight ideas expressed below are not fluffy industry speak, like “build more trust”, or “increase accountability”, or “pay for performance”, etc.  I often encourage these approaches as well, but the concepts listed below are all executable.  They relate to specific behaviors and tools that can be tangibly implemented and observed.  One can tell at a glance whether the parties are playing the old game or a new one.

Each can be individually implemented, or can be co-jointly applied to good advantage as complementary behaviors in an entirely new game.

1.  Ask, Don’t Tell

  • Old Game: The project manager assigns tasks to a team member(s) along with desired delivery dates.  The performer(s) is expected to hit the assigned dates or face consequences.
  • New Game: The project manager describes a task and ASKS the intended performer(s) if and when the task can be successfully delivered.

To accomplish a task, one party (the customer or manager) makes a request of another instead of assigning a task.  Putting a person’s name next to a task does not equal real commitment to fulfillment. Making a request presumes a more egalitarian relationship between the requester and the performer (i.e. not a command-and-control management style).

2.  Performers negotiate delivery dates

  • Old Game: Delivery date is entered in the project plan or specified by the requester as the date they need it done by.
  • New Game: The performer responds to the request by clearly stating if and when the requested task can be delivered.  Counter-offers are commonplace.

The performer engages in a negotiated agreement (including the ability to decline or counter-offer).  The ability to say NO enables a performer to make a committed YES. Moving from task assignments to a two-way agreement that is explicit and public encourages added discretionary effort by the performer to deliver on time.

3.  Response required

  • Old Game: Manager says “I sent out the request, but have yet to receive any response.”  Staff person replies: “I received the new task email from my boss, but I do not want to do it so I will delay or not respond and see if he brings it up again.”
  • New Game: Performer provides an explicit agreement, negotiates an alternative, or declines the request, and each party knows exactly where the negotiation stands and who has the ball for the next action.

The intended performer provides an explicit response to a work request or task.  No more unanswered emails.

4.  Track dialogs in context

  • Old Game: The twists and turns, shifting priorities, and new information encountered along the way that ultimately affects task delivery is lost in a myriad of emails, chats, text messages, and voice mails.
  • New Game:  Every comment and stage of the dialog is captured and available for immediate reference and future review.  Each party contributes and creates a comprehensive record of events, activities, issues, and deliverables.

The real performance lever is the quality of the dialog between the requester and the performer. This is where relationships are built and maintained. The complete dialog thread, in context of who said what to whom, provides new insights into execution details.  As the task or project progresses there is a defined and viewable documentation which can be analyzed and used to learn and mentor the individual as well as the team.

5.  Close the loop

  • Old Game: Performers “slide in” partial deliveries in a haphazard fashion and managers do not formally accept or evaluate their satisfaction with the outcome.
  • New Game: Performers explicitly assert they have a made a delivery in response to a specific request, and managers explicitly accept, acknowledge and assess the result.

Deliveries should be made explicitly and actually accepted and acknowledged by the requester. How satisfied was the requesting manager/customer with the outcome and the deliverable?

6.  Track commitments

  • Old Game: “I have a general idea of the promises I have made, but I regularly forget something along the way.  I do not maintain or update a comprehensive list of all my commitments”.
  • New Game: “I do not lose track of my commitments to others, and therefore my reputation is backed up by hard data.  I know exactly where I stand with all my commitments”.

Keep track of commitments you have made to others and those that others have made to you.  A promise-keeper builds trust and reputation.

7.  History matters

  • Old Game: After the task is completed it falls off the Gantt chart without any memory of how it turned out or what transpired along the way.
  • New Game: A detailed record of all requests, tasks, and deliverables is preserved for mid and post project analysis and review.  Everyone has something to learn from.

Keep an historical record of past conversations and deliveries.  What approaches, policies and best business practices are deployed to capture past experiences and learn how to do it better next time? Break the cycle of past miscues and wasted efforts.

8.  Report performance metrics

  • Old Game: Managers write the annual performance review based on their general impressions and recent memory (e.g. last six weeks) of the employee’s performance.  Employees have no shared record of specific achievements and contributions they have made throughout the year.
  • New Game: Managers and employees have a detailed shared record of all the specific requests and deliverables including specific on-time delivery metrics.

Real metrics about personal and organization performance drive extraordinary improvements. No more performance reviews based only on limited memory of recent events.

The games people play at work no longer serve anyone well.  Forward thinking organizations looking to establish more effective and more powerful work norms will find that paying closer attention to the actual interactions between people will bring big dividends by improving commitment and productivity.  

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Posted in Execution, Managed Conversations, Performance Management, Workplace norms

Email Is Flawed For Managing Work – Transformation Is Coming

Posted on January 3, 2011 by | 1 comment

My co-author on this article, Francois Koutchouk, has a long background in designing and implementing groupware technologies.  We were discussing recent trends in the use, and abuse, of email and perhaps seeing the signs that herald the decline of email as it is currently used.  Our particular concern was the widespread and entrenched reliance on email as a flawed work management tool.

Getting things done

The heart of most business processes and team collaboration is a series of work request transactions and the means to keep track of their progress (or lack thereof).

Simplicity and ubiquity make email an acceptable tool to initiate requests.  But email is not adequate for tracking the dialog that follows.  Email does not support many key aspects of successful work requests including:

  • Formalize an agreement by the recipient to perform, complete, and deliver on a request
  • Negotiate the priority or completion date of a request
  • Track which party has the ball for the next action
  • Expose dependencies (dependent tasks)
  • Share work-in-progress beyond the immediate participants
  • Capture a historical record of the dialog in the context of the request and the project to which the request relates
  • Establish credibility and therefore the trust between the requester and performer based on previous performance
  • Distinguish work that is required to move the business forward from all types of messages, comments, and random information.

The technical reason is simple: email does not provide a structured repository nor workflow features.  Email is therefore woefully inadequate as a tool for handling business processes.

Most knowledge workers acknowledge this conundrum while facing daily onslaughts of emails, irrelevant cc-ed messages, lengthy reply-to threads and  late-night Blackberry messages as the deadline is nearing.

How much longer will we persist with this obviously flawed tool for managing critical business relationships and processes?

Getting out of your inbox

Let’s use the example of a successful sales rep.  Throughout the sales cycle, she needs to coordinate with a variety of individuals within her company:

  • Engineering and Product Management to answer technical questions from the client,
  • Procurement and Legal to fine tune contracts,
  • Accounting and Finance for payments and invoicing,
  • Supply Chain, Production, and Manufacturing for delivery status,
  • Senior management for account management, and
  • She may also have to coordinate with third parties, such as resellers, shippers, add-on components purchased from suppliers, etc.

To meet the prospect’s expectations and delivery timetable there will be a flurry of emails, most of which are at risk of becoming the proverbial messages-in-a-bottle unless she follows up rigorously (assuming she remembers to follow up – since there is no automatic reminder that something hasn’t been handled).  A single breakdown in communications may delay or compromise the deal and business relationship.

Clearly, email is an inadequate tool for managing this work by substituting a low quantity of results-based communications with a high quantity of inefficient messages. The solution may be to move all those disjointed communications and touch-points out of the traditional email system.

One alternate approach is to use project management software such as Microsoft Project or other cloud-based equivalent solutions.  These tools track task assignments, due dates and dependencies, but they are fundamentally single-user applications that do not capture the dialog between the parties regarding negotiation of delivery commitments and changes in status during delivery.  And because these tools require a heavy investment in learning new skills and methods they are best left to project management professionals handling complex tasks, such as building a new hospital wing or managing an ERP installation.

Another approach is to use custom-built software, such as a Lotus Notes application, or a Force.com version thereof, that enforces a predetermined workflow process.  Such an approach works well, tends to be simple to use, but is only appropriate for repeatable business processes – when the workflow is well known, does not change often, and involves the same series of steps and actors.  As such these tools are best used for a yearly contract renewal or provisioning of new customers.

From Talk to Action

Despite our collective understanding that email is flawed as a workflow management tool, we are firmly entrenched in its use.  What is needed is a generic solution that mirrors the simplicity and flexibility of email but adds better workflow tracking and management reporting features.  Knowledge workers will need to be incented out of email rather than forced out.  Adoption of alternate tools must be based on getting better performance from co-workers, not being told to use yet another new software system.  Requests may still initiate out of email, but the conversation that follows must be managed in a shared on-line space accessible to all, including third parties.

Performers negotiate and make explicit delivery commitments that reinforce productive behavior and focus on results.  Tracking the request through to delivery moves the initiative along, from talk to action.  Trust builds between actors (requesters and performers), commitments are met, goals are accomplished, moods improve and email inboxes thin out.

The principles of managing work requests called “commitment based management” are 50 years old, fine-tuned by social scientists such as Fernando Flores and Terry Winograd, as well as thoroughly described in academic journals.  Previous attempts to automate these principles, however, have failed to translate into workable software, despite valiant efforts from Action Technologies, Elf Technologies, and others.  The key to widespread use and acceptance will be solutions where ease-of-use trumps complexity, essential to entice hardened email addicts to a new way of working.

The End of Email?

We can glimpse the future of corporate email by looking at the younger generation of home users: Facebook, Tweet/texting and less and less Google email in that order.

Business emails may dissolve similarly into three entities:

  • Commitment-based messaging to handle business processes and task-based collaboration
  • Instant messaging (chat, SMS, private Tweet) for time-sensitive notifications
  • Cloud-based email for one-to-one conversations, casual discussions and whatever materials blur the line between the private and public life of a worker

Ultimately expenses-to-perceived value will drive the decline of email:

  • High licensing and administrative costs of private email systems (Outlook, Lotus Notes, and their respective server infrastructure)
  • High administrative costs to protect against viruses, spam and phishing
  • Trailing support of many organizations for personal communication devices into the workplace (iPhone, iPad, SMS) leads to compliance liability
  • Increased stress of workers unable to handle their inbox – magnified by round-the-clock mobile accessibility
  • Email inefficiency as a tool to get actions from requests; therefore a flawed means of achieving measurable business results

Email is not going away anytime soon, but the forces of change are mounting and a new communication paradigm is budding.  Work management conversations need to be tracked in a new non-email solution.

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Posted in Execution, HR Systems/Technology, Managed Conversations, Workplace norms

Performance Management – A Conversation Not an Event (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on September 17, 2010 by | Leave a comment

This is the third in a series of articles dealing with Performance Management (and more precisely, Performance Improvement).  This is the second of 2 parts to Performance Management: A Conversation Not an Event.

In the prior posting I focused on the first three of the following six characteristics of an effective performance-related conversation, the result of which was the forging of a clear agreement to deliver.

  1. Openness and candor between the manager and the performer
  2. Opportunity for the performer to negotiate and agree upon the terms of delivery
  3. Clear commitment by the performer for achieving the desired outcomes
  4. Continuity of the dialog; each party stays engaged and provides regular updates
  5. Ongoing assessment and updates by the performer regarding the status of their commitment
  6. Immediate acknowledgement and assessment by the manager of the delivered outcome

This article discusses the final three characteristics of the conversation that deal with what transpires during delivery, acknowledgement, and closing the loop of the conversation.

The fourth characteristic is continuity.  Continuity is similar to, though not the same as, follow up.  Effective performance management is an ongoing conversation; the conversation is active and two-sided. This includes regular one-on-one face-to-face meetings and conversations as well as the thread of e-mails that pertain to the achievement of the agreed upon outcomes.  There is a shared memory, along with some documentation, of how the conversation was initiated, what goals and concerns were expressed, what agreements were made, what challenges were encountered along the way, and what outcomes have been achieved.  Managers need to become better “customers” by providing clear delivery and output requirements, making better detailed and informative requests and staying engaged throughout the entire process.  The manager does not delegate and then simply ask: “Did you do it?” The delegation of a task is not the end of a performance conversation, but rather the beginning of a genuine collaboration.

A fifth characteristic is the ongoing assessment and updates by the performer as to the status or “health” of their agreement.  Goals are not always met or immediately achievable, tasks encounter problems, and performers need to be forthcoming as they become aware of possible shortfalls in delivery or complexity of the deliverable.  Because the manager is now “counting on” the employee to deliver, there is a heightened responsibility on the part of the performer to report progress, particularly if they sense the target date might be missed.  As soon as there is any doubt that they may not make the delivery as planned, instead of “putting their head in the sand” and permitting the manager to rely on hope alone, the performer updates and re-engages with their manager about renegotiating the commitment. Early warning of possible problems is a hallmark of these conversations, as is renegotiation in light of new information. Commitments that can no longer be met are identified early when remedial action and adjustments are most often less costly and more easily corrected. Similarly, if the manager’s original concerns change or there is a change of direction, the manager is obliged to immediately inform the employee and negotiate new deliveries.

Of course, having to report delays or (potentially) missed deadlines are the most challenging portions of the conversation, and, if performers have agreed to stretch for really superior results, there will be more of these “negative” reports. It is precisely in these moments when the manager’s behavior is critical. If the manager responds to “bad news” with a sense of shared commitment and partnership they will join in the performer’s concern and help solve it.  Recriminations, if any, will be minimal. It is not about extracting a commitment from the employee and then beating them up if it is not done. There is just as much responsibility about being a good customer as there is being a good performer.  Partner-like behavior builds trust and makes it easier for the performer to report problems.  We all know that issues or problems caught early are much easier to resolve.  Prompting early notice of breakdowns is a key factor for improving overall organization performance.

The sixth characteristic is honest and immediate acknowledgement and assessment of the deliverable(s) by the manager.  Managers should not wait until the end of the year having built up a library of good news and developmental areas to finally share.  Managers are engaged throughout the delivery and provide clear and candid assessments about whether and how their concerns were addressed.  These mini-reviews and assessments are at the heart of an organization’s continuous learning cycle.

Conversation outcomes are different too

The outcomes from a dialog with these six characteristics are also very different. The manager leaves the first “meeting of minds” conversation with a confident feeling that the performer is committed to achieving the goal/project according to the negotiated agreement. He can count on the performer’s commitment, though this is not to say that they have blind confidence in the outcome. Having had a candid discussion about the performer’s concerns and risks entailed, the manager may even have a less confident feeling than before. Rather than “simply” assigning a task with little or no discussion and assuming it will get done, i.e., a “false” confidence, the manager in these conversations is much more engaged with all the possibilities and the pitfalls associated with the task. Being confident in the employee’s commitment, however, provides the manager with a solid sense that accountability for delivery has been taken on, and is now “owned” by the employee.  A subtle, but critical shift has thus occurred.

This shift enables the manager to reduce the need to micromanage. This alone frees up organizational “waste” in the form of managers’ time and systems spent on checking up, e.g., picture the wasted time a project manager spends each week polling everyone on the team and updating an MS Project Plan to see if each performer is on target with their deliveries.

The performer, for their part, leaves the conversation with a feeling of real commitment to achieving the outcome: Just “working hard at it” and “doing my best” or “giving my best effort” is no longer adequate.  The performer has made an agreement that they do not want to break.  There is no room for cynicism regarding the delivery.  Under this scenario the performer is being treated like a full partner.  They have not just been assigned a new task that can be put on the top on the pile of other tasks.  The performer has engaged in a frank and careful conversation laying out their capabilities and constraints.  The performer and manager have negotiated a delivery that can be met.

Performance-related conversations that exhibit the six characteristics mentioned above achieve an entirely different quality than typical task assignments.  Both the requester and performer are upfront with each other, striving together for something more than average outcomes, and with increasing trust.  The soft core of improving performance lies exactly here.

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Posted in Commitment Based Management, Managed Conversations, Performance Management

Performance Management – A Conversation not an Event (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on September 10, 2010 by | Leave a comment

This is the third in a series of articles dealing with Performance Management (and more precisely, Performance Improvement).

First, some context and my angle.  Performance management means different things to different people.  I am not speaking here about systems that record employee ratings and rankings, that train employees, that capture 360 degree feedback, that build success plans, nor that help managers write the annual performance review document.  I am less interested in measuring and managing current performance, than I am in how management can actually lift measurable performance metrics for the organization as a whole by improving the performance of individual employees through the use of a new generation of practices and behaviors.  My angle is the belief that easy to use and understand software applications can instantiate and perpetuate these new practices.

The title of this article sets the stage: Performance Management is not an event.  Do we really think that a once-per-year “performance review” meeting followed by a two-page performance appraisal document (signed by manager and employee) has a significant effect on improving performance throughout the year? Do we really think that the goal-setting that goes on in these meetings is the motivation for excelling?

Performance improvement is a process – a set of consistent behaviors and practices, carried out by and between managers and employees, that are designed to stimulate, motivate, and evaluate personal performance. The regular one-on-one meeting with your boss, for example, has significantly more impact and effect on individual performance than the yearly review meeting.  What is even more important than the regularity of these encounters is the quality of the conversation that goes on in them.

The Nature and Quality of the Performance Conversation

So how can we begin to talk about the quality of a conversation?  What are its characteristics?  Would we know one if we heard it?  And, if we could begin to describe a quality performance-related conversation in some repeatable terms, is there really any way to inculcate and socialize the organization so all managers follow the same pattern and general approaches?  These are the questions I will address in the remaining portion of this article and the one to follow.

The use of the term “conversation” does not necessarily imply or require a face-to-face meeting.  The conversation referred to is an explicit, two-sided, back and forth interchange of comments and concerns regarding the requested results.  The dialog can happen in-person or remotely, synchronously or asynchronously.

I propose that an effective performance-related conversation will exhibit the following 6 observable characteristics:

  1. Openness and candor between the manager and the performer
  2. Opportunity for the performer to negotiate and agree upon the terms of delivery
  3. Clear commitment by the performer for achieving the desired outcomes
  4. Continuity of the dialog; each party stays engaged and provides regular updates
  5. Ongoing assessment by the performer regarding the status of their commitment
  6. Immediate acknowledgement and assessment by the manager of the delivered outcome

The first three characteristics will be discussed in this posting and the fourth through sixth characteristic will be discussed in a future posting.

The first characteristic of an effective performance-related conversation is openness and candor. The manager and the employee must first identify and agree upon what level of performance the employee is capable of or is being asked to perform.  Even at this stage there can be difficulties.  It is a rare employee who readily admits what their full capabilities really are.  Due to the penalty of failure atmosphere within most companies, employees profer modest goals and then “exceed” them. This common sense approach generally guides employee behavior. We all want to impress and not disappoint so we imply a level of performance that is well within our comfort zone. It would be a rare manager who could coax a straight answer to the question “what do you really think you could accomplish?” Such straight talk only occurs when there is a genuine sense of partnership between the manager and employee; a sense that the manager is not just the order-giver, but is rather the employee’s true supporter and ally.  Underlying this is a shared sense of how possible failure to deliver will be tolerated.  How organizations handle failure is a primary driver of employee behavior.

The second characteristic is a genuine sense of negotiation. Where the employee is being asked to make a firm commitment they are taking on risk.  Where there is risk, there must be negotiation. The manager can make a request that the employee feels is risky. But, then, the employee has to be able to say: “No – I can not fully commit to the requested delivery date and/or expected final output.” For the employee to make a valid commitment, an honest negotiation option must be an acceptable response, e.g., “No, I can not commit to this level of achievement, but I will commit to this delivery date and provide this output.” Each of the parties needs to recognize and agree when risks are being borne and how each will behave if performance or output falls short. The employee can say: “This is what I think I can deliver, but if this happens then I think I can deliver a different level”.  The manager is then able to respond: “If I take care of this concern for you, then what more could you do?” There is a sense of real partnership and trust where both parties make explicit commitments to each other that involve mutual dependencies and obligations.

This is more like a peer-to-peer conversation – it is definitely not a traditional top-down conversation.  Moreover, this type of negotiation is actually quite rare today in corporate America.  Few employees have the courage or ability to negotiate; yet all feel that the “pocket veto” (i.e. allowing the request to go unchallenged at first while knowing it will not actually get done) is just fine.  Perhaps they sense that an up-front confrontation is difficult and the probability is high that the manager will forget the request over time.  For the manager who seeks to gain real and continual commitment they must allow for and present real room for negotiation when a request is made.

The third characteristic is a shared commitment for the outcome. People excel when they are committed to achieving outcomes, not just working down a list of assignments they have been tasked to complete or perform.  Just “showing up” and “doing your best effort” will achieve the acceptable outcomes a portion of the time.  Excelling, however, requires real commitment.  Having publicly committed oneself – having, in effect, made a promise to achieve a resolution to a shared concern by a certain date – has at least three positive effects.

  • First, the conversation gets much more precise as each of the parties share expectations and concerns.
  • Second, the performer is more likely to push themselves to do that “little” extra to keep their public promise.
  • Third, as concerns arise that jeopardize delivery, the employee is motivated to immediately renegotiate terms with the manager / customer thus incenting an early warning of possible breakdowns in terms of due date or deliverables.

The first three characteristics described above are devoted to the initial stage of an effective performance-related conversation – the meeting of the minds and the proper formation of a clear agreement to deliver.  A follow-on posting will discuss the desirable characteristics in the follow on stages of the conversation – delivery and acknowledgement.

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Posted in Commitment Based Management, Managed Conversations, Performance Management

Do People Really Want To Be Held To Their Promises?

Posted on August 16, 2010 by | Leave a comment

If you are a reader of this blog, you know that we here at 4 Spires (www.4spires.com) are promoting a new way of managing workflow through the enhanced dialog between a requester and a performer that improves accountability by making and tracking explicit commitments.  After a short period of reflection, most people inevitably come to the following question: Do I, or other people, really want to be held to our promises and/or commitments?  So let’s address this concern head-on.

There are several levels of response.  First of all, let’s grant that some people do and some do not want to be held to their promises (they also do not like or embrace stretch goals).  If queried, however, many people would report that working hard to deliver on a commitment was one of their proudest accomplishments.  There is no getting around the fact that making a promise to deliver creates a more compelling bond by the performer than most are used to.  From early childhood, we are taught that promises are special.  Nobody wants to make and then have to break a promise.  The truth is that this level of commitment is quite rare in today’s work world.  What is being advocated is uncomfortable because it is new and inserts an added “energy” into the conversation.  It is this “energy” that makes the difference and improves the likelihood of an on-time delivery.

But this discussion is not only about keeping agreements.  Sometimes there are very good reasons for not being able to keep agreements and these have nothing to do with the project or request itself.  The key is that having made a clear up front agreement, the performer will be more forthcoming about having to change it should the need arise.  This is so much different than the more common behavior we have all experienced where the performer provides a sort of “universal compliance” to all requests that are thrown at him, and then uses a form of “selective pocket veto” to drop some and deliver others.

Making explicit commitments and being “held” to them is new behavior for most of us.  Any new behavior creates resistance, even if we agree with its value to stretch people and get more done.  Moreover, whether anyone wants to be “held to my promise” actually has more to do with HOW the request is made versus WHAT the performer is being asked to complete and under what timetable.

Let’s extend the point and explore not just the mechanics of making and keeping promises, but also the sociological and interpersonal aspects.

There are always two people involved in a task related conversation – a requester and a performer. Requesters (think internal or external customers or managers) are interested in “extracting” promises from performers (think staff) they have requested a delivery from.   So even if the performer does not want to be held to their promises or commitments, in a sense, the requester can force the issue.  You could say the requester is enforcing a commitment to deliver, and one could reasonably expect some resistance, either overt or covert, from the performer.

While there are some managers who operate in a demand request mode, this is not the type of heavy-handed, top-down behavior that is being advocated here.  On the contrary, this misses the point entirely.  The point is to prompt a sincere, two-way dialog between the two parties during which an agreement is mutually forged.  The requester grants the performer “room” to make counter-offers or even to decline a request.  The dialog results in the performer willingly making an explicit promise they are fully committed to deliver.

Lastly, there is the issue of tracking, following-up and managing the outcome of the promise.  Here again, the key is NOT about “holding people to their promises” or about following up with the question “did you do it?” but about changing the quality of the dialog between the two parties.  Just because a performer has made a promise does not mean that the delivery will happen exactly as planned. Issues and problems still arise.  BUT, having made an explicit promise in the first place, the performer will be more motivated to notify the requester and renegotiate the delivery.

The real goal is not to “HOLD performers to their promises”, but rather to raise the conversation to an explicit level.

The 4 Spires team believes that one of the most important systemic benefits of the Managed Commitment approach will be that performers will find and report concerns and breakdowns earlier when adjustments to plans and resolutions are easier to accommodate.  Imagine for a moment how your projects would progress if the whole process of identifying and resolving breakdowns were accelerated.

Being “held to a promise” is not the point.  The point is to be having the right conversation in the first place.

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Posted in Accountability, Commitment Based Management, Managed Conversations

Accountability (3 of 3): Sharing the Load

Posted on August 13, 2010 by | 1 comment

This is the third in a series of 3 articles dealing with Accountability.  In the first article Accountability: What Does it Really Mean? I noted how the real meaning of accountability has been hijacked and replaced with a simplistic emphasis on recording delivery dates, and I proposed that real accountability has more to do with the quality of the dialog between people.

The second article Accountability: How is it Achieved? keys in on this dialog and lays out four specific tactics for how accountability is actually built so that performers are really “carrying the ball”.

This final article in the series suggests that, in best practices, the accountability ball should actually be carried down the field by each of the parties – i.e. how the requester and the performer are each accountable to the other.

Accountability can be discussed in terms of a four stage dialog or structured conversation between a requester and a performer – formulating the request, negotiating a commitment, delivering the request on time and as expected, and acknowledging the delivery.  In varying degrees, each of the parties bears some accountability to the other in each of these stages.

  • In the first stage the requester is accountable, first and foremost, for formulating a clear request.  In my experience, it has been amazing to see how often managers botch this.  There is no clear formulation of the request; the responsibilities, the end results, and the timelines needed to complete the results are vague or missing altogether.  Assignments are doled out with little background context and imprecise expectations regarding what would constitute a satisfactory outcome. It is hard to hold the performer accountable for an incomplete delivery when expectations were not clearly understood and agreed at the start.  The performer, for their part, is accountable in this stage for learning the needs and the context of the requester and for getting a clear understanding of the request.  The performer should push to stay in this stage until a clear request has been formulated.
  • In the second stage, the performer has the lead role for accountability….This stage concludes when the performer explicitly agrees to deliver a certain outcome or result by a certain date.  The requester, on the other hand, should not let the conversation advance to the next stage until an explicit agreement has been forged.
  • In the third stage the performer is obviously accountable for delivering by the agreed due date, but that is not all.  The performer is also accountable for maintaining an ongoing dialog with the requester about how the request is proceeding.  Using best practices, the performer is regularly updating the requester about the “health” of the agreement.  Are we on track or has something come up that threatens an on-time delivery?  The performer is accountable to report problems or concerns as quickly as they come up and not wait until critical juncture points or until the due date has passed.  Any “bad news” is reported early by the performer.  The requester, on the other hand, is accountable to advise the performer if and when they become aware of any changes that affect the original context for the agreement.  If priorities change or new information alters or eliminates the need, the requester is bound to advise the performer immediately.  A good way to damage the relationship is to let the performer persist with a task that is no longer really needed.
  • The last stage of the conversation begins when the performer delivers on the agreement.  First of all, the performer should make the delivery explicit.  The performer is accountable for asserting their belief that they have successfully delivered the result that was agreed.  The requester, then, is accountable for acknowledging that delivery and advising the performer if they are satisfied.  It is surprising how rarely this last stage actually occurs in business.  More often, work just carries on from one task to the next with no explicit delivery by the performer and no direct acknowledgement and assessment by the requester.  Feedback is saved up and bundled into the end-of-year performance review.

When accountability is shared like this all kinds of good things happen.

To summarize, as pointed out in the first of these articles, accountability is really about the quality of the dialog between the two parties, NOT about tracking due dates.  Now, to be candid, conversations like this are not easy.  As I will discuss in an upcoming article, conversations like this require a measure of courage and trust on the part of both parties.  Each of the parties is accountable for establishing and maintaining this direct and more “intimate” dialog.  When you are in a conversation where real accountability is palpable you will know it, and conversely when you are in a conversation without it, you will also know it.

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Accountability (2 of 3): How is it Achieved?

Posted on August 9, 2010 by | Leave a comment

This is the second in a series of 3 articles dealing with Accountability.  The first article Accountability: What Does it Really Mean I noted how the real meaning of accountability has been hijacked and replaced with a simplistic emphasis on recording delivery dates, and I proposed that real accountability has more to do with the quality of the dialog between people.

This article keys in on this dialog and lays out four specific tactics for how accountability is actually achieved.

While most everyone acknowledges that accountability is a good thing and want more of it, most people really do not know how to get more.  All too often we fool ourselves into thinking we have more of it by emphasizing the other roots of the word – counting and accounting – which leads one to pursuit of monitored assigned due dates.

Below are recommendations for building real accountability:

  • Begin a conversation, not a delegation. The proper start to a conversation that results in real accountability is a request (e.g. Can you get this done by June 1st?).  The requestor / manager assumes the persona of a customer instead of “lord and master”.  The requester begins with a different tone of voice, and acknowledges that the performer is already working on other tasks.  The phrase “Will you please…” gets someone ready for a response; the phrase “You need to…” raises hackles.  Having started the conversation with a question, instead of a statement, the requester must then wait for an answer before proceeding.  A measure of control is relinquished over to the performer.  It’s a dialog after all, not a monologue.
  • Acknowledge mutual dependency and build partnership. There is no accountability without negotiation.  The performer must answer including sharing their capabilities and concerns regarding the request.  Commitments that evidence real accountability involve a level of disclosure, and indeed intimacy, that is typically not present when just assigning tasks.  Most managers assign tasks and expect accountability to follow along as part and parcel of the assignment.  In effect, they are saying “I am assigning you this task and am holding you (the performer) accountable for getting it done on time”.  This is a one-way statement, not a dialog.  The performer has not actually “answered”.  The performer has made no personal, nor public ownership of the task.  The manager has created a workflow / action and expects tacit acknowledgement and agreement.  In a subtle sense, the accountability for completion of the task still rests with the manager who then must spend his time closely following up the assignment.  In order to accept accountability, the performer must be afforded the opportunity to negotiate, or even to decline, the request.
  • Shift accountability squarely to the performer. The result of a proper dialog should be an explicit agreement, a specific commitment by the performer to satisfy the requester’s concern by a certain due date.  In so doing, the performer [willingly] takes on the accountability for timely and successful delivery of the request.  And having done so, it is now the performer’s responsibility, not the manager’s, to closely track and follow up the task. The ownership of the task has shifted to the performer.  Of course, the manager / requester is still concerned with an on-time delivery, but rather than relying on frequent reviews of task due dates and the weekly “how’s it going” query of each performer, the manager now relies on the performer’s ownership of the task to prompt update reports.  If the delivery is on track, the manager need not ask.  If the delivery is threatened, the manager relies on prompt notice of a problem by the responsible performer.  The key is to shift the dialog from the requestor saying “I am holding you accountable” to the performer saying  “you can count on me”.  Underpinning all of this is the notion of trust, which leads to the next practice.
  • Provide metrics that support reputation and trust building. Accountability and trust go hand in hand.  Trust is the soft underbelly of accountability. [Note: See the related article on Trust.]  The greater the amount of trust, the greater is the shift of accountability to the performer.  Requestors who have low trust that the task will be delivered on time spend a considerable amount of time monitoring and following up many times during delivery.  Those with a high level of trust will spend relatively little time following up, and will instead rely on the trusted performer to alert them if and when concerns arise.  There is also a virtuous cycle of trust – those you trust are monitored less closely, their confidence builds, they feel more empowered, they perform better and earn more trust.

Trust is built up over time.  Repeated performance builds a reputation.  Both the requestor and the performer need to have specific historical records that are shared so that trust can be built and maintained using actual documented records.  The record keeping that is most helpful is historical delivery patterns such as percent of on-time deliveries over the past year.  Reports like this are surprisingly rare in today’s performance conscious work world.

The next article in this series talks about how accountability is actually shared between the requester and the performer.

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Accountability (1 of 3): What Does It Really Mean?

Posted on August 1, 2010 by | 2 comments

This is the first in a series of 3 articles dealing with Accountability: What Does It Really Mean, How Accountability is Achieved, and finally Understanding How Accountability is Shared.

Accountability Defined: It is about dialog, not due dates

Accountability is a funny word. Though everyone thinks accountability is a good thing and wants to have more of it, few people really understand what it is and how to improve or implement accountability. The word has an appealing, high-minded ring to it, but its meaning is imprecise and not well understood.

Interestingly, the dictionary defines accountability as “the state of being answerable: obliged to report, explain, or justify something.” It is mostly about the dialog between two people and less about being responsible for completing a delivery.

Accountability fundamentally applies to a conversation between a customer or requester and a performer whom they have requested a service from. The customer desires to “hold the performer accountable” for completing the delivery. In most business relationships, however, this sense of accountability is actually implicit and weak. Executives and managers make requests of their staff and colleagues and want to hold them accountable for satisfactory delivery. But the conversation surrounding the request is vague and (deliberately) imprecise. If queried, each party to the conversation would probably concur that a measure of accountability was present in their relationship though neither directly spoke or committed to a timetable or the output / results. The performer wants to preserve as much “wiggle room” for the satisfactory delivery as possible, and the requester does not feel comfortable pressing for a formal commitment.

Thereafter the notion of accountability devolves into an accounting exercise. Software solutions that purport to address/improve accountability are merely systems for entering and reporting on due dates.
Most people think of managing accountability as a monitoring and enforcement approach “I will keep good track of all the assignments I have made to other people so I can hold them accountable later”. There are three fundamental concerns with this notion of accountability.

• First, it has a very top-down, autocratic approach where the emphasis is rooted in a heavy “did you do it?” question. Enforcement is implied and the underlying punitive nature is undeniable. This is obviously not the mood one would wish to create with a partner or collaborator. Small wonder then that neither the performer nor the customer really wants to explicitly talk in these terms. Moreover, the relationship being built between the two parties in this way is not felt as at all egalitarian; one is up and one is down. This mood certainly goes against the grain of the sensibilities prevalent in the modern work force.

• Secondly, this approach is one-sided. The customer is the one keeping track. There is no explicit response from the performer, “no catching the ball”, as it were, that has been tossed to them. The manager does all the checking and following up. The actual burden of managing the accountability is on the customer / requester.

• Lastly and most importantly there is little evidence that such accounting actually leads to improved performance. Just monitoring due dates does not increase on-time deliveries.

A better notion of accountability draws from its actual definition around the term “answerable”. What is important is the “answer” from the performer. The quality of the dialog between the parties is WAY more important than recording the assigned due date.

This dialog starts with an explicit request that needs to be met with an explicit response. A conversation ensues and a specific agreement about expected results and due date is crafted. [Note: The explicit nature of this conversation presumes that all parties have sufficient courage to engage honestly with each other. Courage is an essential aspect to requesting and negotiating. Honesty should not be taken for granted. The need for interpersonal courage will be discussed in a future blog.] However, the conversation does not stop there and “wait” for the due date to arrive. On the contrary, the conversation, thus started, continues throughout the delivery period during which both parties stay in close touch about progress toward the due date. Having responded directly to the request and committed to the outcome, the performer has, in fact, taken on the accountability for delivery.

The implicit dialog of the manager saying “I am counting on you to deliver …” has been replaced with the performer saying “You can count on me…”. The performer has “caught the ball” and is obliged to keep the customer up-to-date on any news or concerns that might threaten the completion of the request. The burden of accountability has shifted to the performer which is where it really belongs. This shift has a profound effect on improving organization performance.

In the next article, I will continue this discussion with some specific tactics for how to build accountability that leads to improved performance.

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Posted in Accountability, Commitment Based Management, Managed Conversations