{"id":936,"date":"2016-01-12T14:12:12","date_gmt":"2016-01-12T19:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/?p=936"},"modified":"2016-01-14T15:09:02","modified_gmt":"2016-01-14T20:09:02","slug":"the-right-way-to-hold-people-accountable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/2016\/01\/12\/the-right-way-to-hold-people-accountable\/","title":{"rendered":"The Right Way to Hold People Accountable"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Folks. In my previous blog post, I was talking about holding yourself accountable as a leader. Well ‘lo and behold this article pops up in my email box this morning.<\/p>\n

It is a great piece on the topic of accountability and the 5 areas where you must BE CLEAR for real accountability to truly exist. I will be continue digging into this topic as it relates to sales leadership and management as January progresses.<\/p>\n

Here is an excerpt from the article and the link to the entire article is below.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Clear expectations.<\/strong> The first step is to be crystal clear about what you expect. This means being clear about the outcome you\u2019re looking for, how you\u2019ll measure\u00a0success, and how people\u00a0should go about achieving the objective. It doesn\u2019t all have to come from you. In fact, the more skilled your people are, the more ideas and strategies should be coming from them. Have\u00a0a genuinely two-way conversation, and before it\u2019s over, ask the other person to summarize the important pieces \u2014 the outcome they\u2019re going for, how they are going to achieve it, and how they\u2019ll know whether they\u2019re successful \u2014\u00a0to make sure you\u2019re ending up on the same page. Writing out a\u00a0summary is a good idea but doesn\u2019t replace saying it out loud.<\/li>\n
  2. Clear capability.<\/strong> What skills does the person need to meet the expectations? What resources will they need? If the person does not have what\u2019s\u00a0necessary, can they acquire what\u2019s missing? If so, what\u2019s the plan? If not, you\u2019ll need to delegate to someone else. Otherwise you\u2019re setting them up for failure.\u00a0\"timetable-scale\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Clear measurement. <\/strong>Nothing frustrates leaders more than being surprised by failure. Sometimes this surprise is because the person who should be delivering is afraid to ask for help. Sometimes it comes from premature optimism on both sides. Either way, it\u2019s completely avoidable. During the expectations conversation, you should agree on weekly milestones with clear, measurable, objective targets. If any of these targets slip, jump on it immediately. Brainstorm a solution, identify a fix, redesign the schedule, or respond in some other way that gets the person back on track.<\/li>\n
  4. Clear feedback. <\/strong>Honest, open, ongoing feedback is critical. People should know where they stand. If you have clear expectations, capability, and measurement, the feedback can be fact-based and easy to deliver. Is the person delivering on her commitments? Is she working well with the other stakeholders? If she needs to increase her capability, is she on track? The feedback can also go both ways\u00a0\u2014\u00a0is there something you can be doing to be more helpful? Give feedback\u00a0weekly, and remember it\u2019s more important to be helpful than nice<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  5. Clear consequences.<\/strong> If you\u2019ve been clear in all of the above ways, you can be reasonably sure that you did what\u2019s necessary to support their performance. At this point, you have three choices: repeat, reward, or release. Repeat the steps above if you feel that\u00a0there is still a lack of clarity in the system. If the person succeeded, you should reward them appropriately (acknowledgement, promotion, etc.). If they have not proven accountable and you are reasonably certain that you followed the steps above, then they are not a good fit for the role, and you should release them from it (change roles, fire them, etc.).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Link to the rest of the article is right here<\/p>\n

    The Right Way to Hold People Accountable<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Hi Folks. In my previous blog post, I was talking about holding yourself accountable as a leader. Well ‘lo and behold this article pops up in my email box this morning. It is a great piece on the topic of accountability and the 5 areas where you must BE CLEAR for real accountability to truly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[17,25,39,29,56,37,31,32,50,21,33,40,58,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-players","category-best-practice","category-change","category-communication-skills","category-continual-development","category-critique-session","category-drive","category-guts","category-handling-criticism","category-human-resources","category-intelligence","category-motivation","category-sales-management","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=936"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":941,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions\/941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}