Communication effectiveness

Accountability as part of a Mindset leading to real success

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Accountability has seen a significant increase in investment over the last year.  What is accountability?  Why is it important? What does it change to results and team dynamics?  Why are people not accountable?  What will foster accountability? Those are a few of the questions leaders ask and where they seek solutions. Our efforts have been aimed at explaining accountability, putting it in the perspective of a productive mindset, and helping teams define where they must be accountable and what they will gain from it.

What is accountability?

Many people see accountability as a tool to blame others when things don’t go as planned.  In the news we often read demands to identify who is accountable for such and such events.  In most cases, it means that we try to identify a person or group to blame.  At Aseret, we do not think that accountability should serve that purpose.  Who wants to be accountable if it is used to assign blame?  Accountability must empower people, help them accept ownership of both success and failure so that they can evolve, grow and develop solutions.  We aim to help individuals, teams and corporations to be accountable and guide their actions in the most productive manner possible.  Accountability should always be a call to action to benefit all stakeholders.  Here is an example on which we worked with a client this year.  This applies to all customer-facing individuals in the company.  Accountability: For every customer, find out their reasons to opt for any product other than ours, put that information in the correct perspective, and figure out what it will take for them to choose or consider our option. 

Accountability is the ability to actively engage in every reasonable action that aim to optimize results for all stakeholders.

Why is it important? 

It is a plan of action to generate results that are beneficial to all stakeholders.  By insisting on every customer, it tells the accountable person that they must consider each customer as potential.  While it is true that corporations have specific target lists based on a multitude of proven parameters, data is not perfect.  It is also a great exercise for anyone to determine if indeed the data is accurate.  It may reveal potential that was overlooked.  This accountability statement also tells team members that discounting clients they don’t like or don’t get along with is not a sufficient reason to abandon efforts.  The statement also says that we must seek first to understand why the customers opt for any product or solution.  It implies that team members must be sufficiently curious to find ways to ascertain the decision making process of each customer.  It also implies that we learn from those customers, that we gain knowledge directly from them.  It is that very knowledge that will guide systematic, structured and logical actions.  This then forms the guidelines for the last section of the statement, to define what will most likely help customers opt for the adapted solutions we can offer and support.

What does it change to results and team dynamics?

Being accountable is realizing that we, as individuals in a team, must take upon ourselves to move forward and generate optimal results.  It implies that if I find out that a customer needs information that I do not have, I must find a way to provide that information.  Instead of saying, “that’s not my expertise therefore I am not responsible if the information is not available”, the individual will engage with other members of the team or the corporation to unearth the information and determine how to best transmit it to the customer. 

Imagine that you are hosting a Zoom conference with 50 people.  Your house or office loses power, and you cannot run the meeting.  Will you simply do nothing, let people wonder why the session is not starting and blame the power company for your inability to do your job?  What efforts will you deploy that are not technically part of your responsibilities?  Why are you taking such actions?  What are your efforts likely to generate? 

What if you are hosting very important customers in the boardroom in the morning and there is a roaring retirement celebration in that same boardroom the evening before and, because the power outlets in that boardroom did not work for some reason, the cleaning crew did not vacuum the carpet, leaving all kinds of detritus scattered on the floor.  How would you respond to the leader of that crew stating that it is indeed the responsibility of the cleaning team to vacuum but if there is no power for their tools, they are not able to do their job?  What would an accountable cleaning team do in such circumstances?

Imagine a very similar situation but exchange the cleaning crew with the vice-president of marketing and the vacuum replaced with a laptop and projector for the Power Point presentation.  It is the responsibility of the VP to make the PowerPoint presentation.  What does an accountable VP do in case the power outlets do not work? Do they spend their time blaming the building manager?  Or do they find a way to make the presentation?  In this case, the accountability of the VP is not to make the PowerPoint presentation, their accountability is to ensure that the information is transmitted in the optimal manner to the client, verify how the information is perceived, and how it will help the client decide.  If the presentation is made on a flipchart, only with a black marker, it may not be pretty or dazzling, but if it does transmit the necessary information and engages the client in a productive discussion, who cares if the colors are not right?

Why are people not accountable? 

Back to where we started this short discussion, an important factor to explain why people are not accountable (or don’t see the value of accountability) lays in the tendency to blame others for errors or failures.  In the book The Right Kind of Wrong, Amy Edmondson helps us better understand how failures have been an incredible engine for innovation.  Allegedly, Thomas Edison said the following on inventing the light bulb after countless attempts that resulted in busts: “I have not failed, I just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”  He did not say this to dismiss failures; he simply expressed that success often comes after or because of failures.  It is also a great link to accountability.  Edison understood that perseverance (be curious), learning from mistakes (acquire knowledge), searching for better ways to obtain a set objective (be adaptable) and diligent efforts were fundamental to the end result.  There is a tendency in business to easily blame any mistake or failure and, at the same time, only praise outstanding outcomes.  I have referred to the following data many times over the past 20 years.  I am using it again to help illustrate the issue with accountability.  Sadly, engagement statistics have been consistent since the mid 90’s.  For the last 30 years in the US, only 25 to 30 % of employees are deemed engaged in their work.  For those individuals, engagement means that they are actively interested in their job, are trying their best to be efficient, they care about their impact and are interested in learning.  According to Gallup in a publication of 2025 some of the reasons for employees to be disengaged revolve around 1- a lack of clarity on expectations, 2- the feeling that they are not sufficiently treated as a person, 3- do not receive encouragement for their development.  If we only look at those three factors, it can explain why people are not accountable.  How can one be accountable if expectations are not clear, and if they feel unimportant?  Add to this a generalized lack of recognition, low value for teamwork, loss of purpose and we can better understand some of the reasoning behind a reduced level of accountability.

Accountability should free us to do what actually makes a difference.  It implies that we will try things that may fail at times.  In a culture of psychological safety, where failures are discussed and seen as an opportunity rather than a way to blame others, people actually embrace accountability and understand that it ultimately generates growth and success.  Being accountable does not imply that everything will be perfect, go as planned or even succeed.  It does infer that a person or a team take upon themselves to try their best to get the intended results.  The cleaning crew imagined earlier may try to find battery operated vacuum cleaners, mechanical sweep brooms or simply do the best possible job using what they have in hand.  It may not be perfect or impeccable, but they aim for the best possible results.

Here is an actual situation, something that happened to someone I know.  The person showed up for a doctor’s appointment and asked the receptionist if the intended exam was covered by Medicare.  The response was, “I don’t know, you can ask the doctor when you see her”.  While it is true that the receptionist may not be directly responsible to know the information and provide it to the patient, if that individual was accountable to provide optimal service to a patient, the answer would have been something like “let me check for you with our billing team”.  An accountable person will do whatever is reasonable to ensure clients have the necessary information they need.

What will foster accountability?

  1. Define specific accountabilities and why they must be put in place (sense of urgency)
  2. Establish psychological safety.  Failure is welcome, discussed, viewed as an opportunity to learn, a launchpad for improvement.
  3. Empower people.  It is a personal as well as a team necessity.
  4. Track and recognize accountable behaviors, highlighting the positive outcomes.
  5. Celebrate the results of accountability.
  6. Make accountability a part of the culture for success.
  1. Define and be specific. 

We often hear comments such as “we know what our accountabilities are.” or “We completely understand what must be done”.  Very often, it is only partially true.  And in most cases, accountabilities are misunderstood and viewed as the same as responsibilities.  In reality, they are often quite “different” even if they do work together.  If a team is responsible for transmitting the messaging for a product or service to customers, they should be accountable to ensure that the messaging is indeed shared in a manner that makes sense to each individual customer.  To do so, people in the team must understand what is important to each customer and “translate” the messaging in a manner that has value.  For example, safety of a product is an important message, and it will be a significant aspect for a large number of customers.  It is, however, critical to understand that safety may not mean the same thing to every customer.  This is an example of a specific statement of accountability defined by one client: “We commit to fully understand the various requirements our team may have and determine the best way to facilitate and implement adapted and creative solutions within the confines of the law and rules of engagement of our industry.”   In this statement, there is recognition that all members of a team may not have the same requisites, motivations, or aspirations, meaning that one solution that fits all will not be sufficient, even acceptable if the intent is for the whole team to find ways to work as a team and collaborate optimally.

  1. Establish psychological safety.

Most people will agree that accountability is vital to any business endeavor.  While we can easily argue that accountability is essential in a plethora of other situations, not just business, let’s stay with business.  The question now is, how can we ensure that a majority of people are indeed accountable?  We stated earlier that accountability should not be a tool to blame people.  It is therefore important to avoid retribution for unaccountable behaviors.  While it may work, repression and fear-based practices are usually short-lived.  The rebound effect may also be brutal.  Imagine that people in any company work very hard to hide mistakes or failures.  They may do so because failure is considered unacceptable or, if it is accepted, there are immediate and often long-term consequences.  Individuals, even after one mistake, get a negative reputation.  They are not assigned to key projects or not well integrated in teams.  If and when that happens, people notice, and avoid being “that guy”.  Blaming people for failures is probably one of the most destructive corporate behaviors and is a major hindrance to growth, to discovery, to improvements that may generate tremendous success.  How many failures happened in the course of inventing the telephone, the explosion engine, most tools we use in kitchens, the computer, television, radio, airplanes, safe heating systems, sewers, medications, vaccines, heart transplant, etc.  If mistakes, failures, embarrassment, or discouragement were banned or blown out of proportions, we may still live in caves.  Countless misfiring and initial fiascos resulted in life altering discoveries.  Penicillin is a prime example.  X-rays is another.  And so are the pacemaker, superglue, the micro-wave oven, Velcro, the smoke detector, matches, warfarin, etc.  Imagine your life without those.  Imagine if a single failure was treated in such a way that inventors stopped their efforts.  The first solution to accountability is to accept and discuss failures as a way forward.

  1. Empower people

In addition to being safe, people in a group must have the ability to express their accountabilities, discuss them, and encourage others in their actions.  Let individuals refine group accountabilities to ensure they own them. In line with psychological safety, let people try different approaches to their accountabilities.  Allow them to share their successes as well as their failures or challenges.  Encourage sharing of actions and their outcomes.

  1. Track and recognize accountable behaviors, highlighting the positive outcomes.

As people are empowered and share what they have put into place, there must be a system in place to track all actions, those that resulted in progress, and those that will help build a roadmap for continued growth.  We always ask teams to discuss, define and write their accountabilities so that everyone has them.  Teams are then encouraged to get together on a regular basis (every 3-4 weeks) and review how they implemented their accountabilities and what resulted, trying to turn every failure or difficulty into a learning opportunity, and clearly identifying the positive outcomes.  This way, efforts are discussed and turned into valuable growth moments.  We want to encourage effort as well as possibly rephrasing or re-organizing accountabilities if there is a need.

Behavioral changes are often best established on positive outcomes.  The more we look at actions often and with an eye to validate the outcomes, the more comfort we gain with the necessary actions, and they eventually turn into new or more stable habits.

  1. Celebrate the results of accountability.

Some of the findings, learning opportunities and outcomes from step 4 must receive more energy, they must be celebrated.  A celebration must be specific.  It must highlight precise behaviors or actions and detail the outcomes. By verbalizing the outcome(s) (reaction), giving them a meaning, we validate the accountable behaviors and continue to reinforce their habitual implementation.  And following the precepts already outlined, it is important to celebrate both successes and failures.  Celebrating failures is honoring what was learned from them and how they contributed to perseverance and guiding the way to improved actions.

  1. Make accountability a part of the culture for success.

What results from steps 4 and 5 is the integration of accountable action into the team culture.  Here again, we must not expect that it will happen organically, without addressing it.  The chances are that as we celebrate the results of accountability, habits are formed and then become part of the culture.  While this is true, it remains necessary to “officially” state the culture evolution as it influences the vision and mission of the group.

One last essential aspect is to understand that accountability does not live on its own. As we have defined in the Congruent™ Mindset, Accountability can only thrive when used in congruence with Adaptability, Knowledge and Curiosity.  To be accountable, an individual must show a certain level of flexibility (adaptability).  As one is accountable, they learn and acquire knowledge that feeds their accountability and outcomes.  Finally, one learns and adapts by using curiosity.  By opening their minds to new knowledge and novel ways to approach situations.  It is therefore part of being accountable to seek growth and innovative endeavors.

One final thought.  How much is your company spending on market research, market access, data and other tools or systems?  What is the return on those investments?  Now, think of a team of people that are truly accountable, adaptable, knowledgeable and curious.  A team that embraces those competencies fully.  How much can such a team tell you about the market, your clients, the way to access them, what has most influence on their choices and all those pieces of information for which the company is paying other people to tell you.  An accountable and curious team will probably accumulate highly valuable market data at no additional cost.  They will gain access more naturally.  Their adaptability will allow them to maximize returns on the most basic tools they use.  Accountable people are also fair, honest, humble and reasonable individuals which in turn makes them pretty effective at gaining valuable and actionable knowledge.  Why not invest in building that kind of team as opposed to spending enormous amounts of resources and hope they will be used efficiently?

Progress is often considered a bad thing for some and good for others. Which is it?

This entry was posted in Communication effectiveness HR development strategy Leadership Learning and development and tagged growth leadership learning productivity progress on by

Do you have a mobile phone? If so, is it a smart phone? You know, a phone that has more computing capacity than the NASA teams that sent American astronauts to the moon and brought them back in the late 60’s. Some of you may not know what was available before those smart phones so the next few questions may not make immediate sense to you. Still read on as it will soon speak to you. How would many of you feel if you had to go back to the digital phones of the first decade of the second millennium? With many of them, most notably with a BlackBerry, you could send and receive emails, accomplish a number of tasks, and talk to people. Very few Apps were available. Paying bills, banking, booking a hotel or airline tickets, GPS navigation, watching television series or movies, consulting books, taking and editing pictures or videos, paying for groceries or restaurant bills, calculating your mortgage payments as you considered purchasing a house or apartment, dating, ordering food, ordering a car ride service, reading a newspaper, and a plethora of other tasks that are normal today were either impossible or really challenging.

What about analog phones before that? Texting and calling were the only things you could do. Would you go back to that?

If you like your smart phone or if you hate it but cannot see how you could function without it, it is fair to imply that you embraced or at least accepted progress.

What about cars? What about dial-up internet access? What about the advances in computers? What about fiber optics? What about flat screen TVs? What of the newest drugs to treat cancers, diabetes, auto-immune diseases, and genetic diseases? What would a large part of the population do without Amazon? While it is certainly true that all of the above come at a cost, would you be OK to go back to what was there before? If not, whatever that “not” is, you choose progress.

All that progress came from research, science, and people like you, thinking that it is always possible to do better. Dreamers like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Watson and Crick, Alexander Graham Bell, and Pasteur still, to this day, influence all of our lives. They used science to induce progress. But wait, what if they were simply the hands of God? What if all their inspiration came from the Supreme Guide? Then we should look at progress and science as good things, created by God. Things that must have been designed to make us better people. Isn’t curing diseases part of the plan for humans to be happier? Isn’t it benevolent to use progress to reduce suffering?

Progress is usually meant to improve our lives. Yet, we can also associate progress with terrible things. Those smart phones we love also make us stupid. We do not remember the phone numbers of the people we love. We depend on those devices to remind us to reach out to our friends for their birthdays. People have dinner together, on a round table, with great food served by hard-working people, but cannot look into each others’ eyes because they are too busy with another part of their lives, the one that lives on a screen.

We spend more time trying to connect our devices to our cars’ entertainment system than actually driving properly, with eyes on the road. We order food kits rather than learn to cook and create something that may reveal skills we never knew we were able to develop. We avoid talking to people because texting is cooler, and significantly less involving. We freely call people names and destroy their lives online because we never face them or even consider that what we read about them may be wrong.

Does this mean that progress is bad? Well, it is not always only good.  In 19th century London (UK), detritus was everywhere, most of the human excrement was left in the streets and found their way to the Thames.   People lived in disease-ridden filth.   Do people in London today want to go back to 19th century London? Probably not yet, who would like housing in London to be more affordable? Advances in medicine have saved millions of lives, we all have a friend or relative that is still here today because of it. Yet advancements are increasingly expensive and demanding on the system with some people having no true access to those advances. Computers have initially brought increases in productivity yet; it is more and more questioned because each of us using computers must do more than before. In fact, the productivity paradox depicts a bleaker picture when comparing the incredible advances of computing capabilities and the overall productivity of industrialized countries.

While there are disadvantages associated with progress, we mostly benefit from it. And progress being progress, we also evolve our abilities to deal with the less positive consequences.

By 1720, Nantucket Island was the hub of whaling in America. In 1853, American whaling reached its peak and employed around 70,000 people. At that time, it is estimated that the total population in what is now the USA was roughly 23 million. In today’s numbers, it would mean that over 1 million people were employed in whaling. While in 1853 there were over 900 whaling vessels, by 1895, only 51 remained in all the USA. The last whaling ship in the US was sent out in 1927. Progress can bring dramatic changes, and the population did adapt.

In 1950, we had over 1,340,000 switchboard operators in the US. By 1991, they were all gone. What about video store operators? Have you seen a milkman lately? How about typesetters? What about photo developing? How many music record stores are left today?

Things change constantly. Moore’s law states that computer chips double in transistor capacity every 2 years. This last comment certainly brings up the concept of “programmed obsolescence” for many. And with it the idea that much progress has been the result of increased profits, market shares, competitive advantages, and other means to generate revenue. Our economy is founded on growth. Reducing costs may lead to growth in profits. Increasing demand may also yield more profits. Scarcity brings prices up and potential profits. It may therefore be fair to say that progress is an economic phenomenon driven by greed rather than need. Afterall, the Middle Ages span over a thousand years and comparatively to the 500 years that followed (Renaissance, the Age of Exploration, Early Modern Period, and the Industrial Era), few meaningful innovations were made (eyeglasses, gunpowder, windmills, clocktowers, building techniques, printing machines, and agriculture).  Could we still live in that way? Of course. Would we want to live that way? The average life expectancy during that period was 30 to 35 years. And it was rough, really awful at most times. Close to 70% of the US population was over 35 in 2024. In 1024, those people would be dead already. Is that progress?

We can dispute the fact that a number of innovations may have caused more pain than benefits. When I asked AI to list innovations that have had more negative impacts than positives, it spat back, social media, Opioids, Automotive technology, Fast Fashion, e-cigarettes, and others. In each case, the net benefit can be argued on both sides. The point is that progress comes not only with positives. Same as if we chose to live in the Middle Ages.

Progress is in Nature. The universe is still expanding after billions of years following the Big Bang. Species on Earth keep evolving as Nature changes. That is progress. We age, we learn, we change. Progress is part of life; it happens whether we want it or not. So, while some of it may not yield all the positive initially intended, it seems more productive to embrace it and work with it than just wait and see.

If we agree with this, we must briefly revisit what drives progress. Even if we accept that a considerable number of developments are motivated by economic growth or tenet, what drives progress is science and research. Eyeglasses were invented around the year 1000 after an Arab scholar and astronomer suggested that smoother glass could help people with visual impairment. It was based on observation, reflection, and empirical data. The steam engine, the telephone, the light bulb, the airplane, the automobile, the computer, the transistor, and the internet were all created following scientific discoveries of fundamental and applied science. Science is progress.  Science is looking for answers and often finds them. Just like progress, it makes mistakes, and it searches for ways to explain and fix them. Everyone has the right to criticize science yet all of us benefit from science every minute of every day. Science actually makes it easier to question and vilify it since websites and social media are using science as a structure for their existence.  Science is everywhere around us. It is the reason we have smart phones with the computing capacity of thousands on NASA scientists of the 1960’s in our pocket. Science is an integral part of progress, even for Mother Nature.

Here is an example of Mother Nature’s use of science.  The peppered moth’s original color was a mix of grey tones.  It allowed the moth to mimic the color of tree bark and “hide” from birds, their predator. The moth thrived.  Then came the industrial Revolution (progress) and soot was produced in such quantities that tree bark was covered in black.  As a result, the darker individuals of the peppered moth were less detectable than their lighter cousins.  Consequently, the now prominent peppered moth was darker in color.  The lighter individuals, more easily detectable by their predators, faded away until coal was replaced by cleaner energy sources (more progress).  Tree barks went back to their “natural” color and the lighter moth “returned” at the demise of the darker ones.  This is one of many demonstrations of natural selection, science.

Progress is ineluctable, our environment ever changing.  To survive, we adapt.  And if we want to use this example as a way to explain that going backwards is a good thing, let us not forget that the return of the “original” peppered moth was caused by the progress in sources of energy.  Otherwise, the dark moth would have continued to prevail on the basis of the environmental reality.  The point is that everything changes and progresses.

So, progress. Is this a bad or a good thing? Why do we embrace progress and, at the same time, vilipend and disparage several of its implications?  Sometimes, it is important to spend the time to understand what a word, a concept, or an idea means, so we can put it in the correct perspective.