Building Management Accountability – Would You Stake Your Job on It?

I’ve been reading David Maister’s book “Strategy and the Fat Smoker“. It’s full of practical information to help manage professional services firms. Chapter 13, “Accountability: Effective Managers Go First,” got my interest because it begins with teh true story of a firm’s president proclaiming to all his employees that he would resign if  he did not succeed in improving their ratings of his performance as a manager by 20 percent within one year. Any manager who makes such a statement will get their employees’ attention and, admiration – after all, that manager is declaring their desire to improve.

The chapter is not about who has the confidence to put their job on the line if they do not improve. Instead Maister is urging management to build accountability processes that are available to all employees. His premise is that if managers become accountable for their own performance first, their employees will follow, triggering company-wide performance improvements.

Maister suggests a four step process:

1. Determine core competencies your management teams needs (listening, enforcing company values, growth, etc.). “The purpose is to think through what you really need to be good at if you are to be an effective manager.”
2. Circulate the final questionnaire to everyone that each manager works with in the organization.
3. Publish your average ratings.
4. Call a meeting where managers publicly identify their accountabilities for self improvement.

Some firms might hesitate to benchmark employee perceptions of managements’ competencies because it’s a lot of input to gather and collate into an understandable, measurable format.

But here’s where automation comes in. It not only makes the data collection easier, but enhances the whole effort, by incorporating results into individual performance appraisals.

With the results in place as a baseline, an automated performance management system should then provide the means to set goals around them. For example, a goal to improve competency scores by 20% gives managers an accountability that spreads throughout the organization. Furthermore, firm administrators can identify any shortcomings within the management team and address them through development planning.

Since automation has now eliminated many of the administrative barriers, ideas like David Maister’s can be more readily implemented to promote transparency and accountability.