PD Strategies Blog

If you want to change the accountability start with working on changing the culture. The best way to create an accountability culture is to help people to accept accountability. The best way to accomplish this is by motivating them to be accountable. Understanding what motivates a person, whether it be rewards, recognition, promotion, or feeling that something is accomplished will result in developing that accountability attitude. However, you will have continued failure if you do nothing and refuse to hold people accountable for results. How does a manager hold members of the staff responsible for performance? What about an employee who needs help but fears asking for help? The results can be devastating when we fail to have accountability discussions. Having an accountability discussion begins with a discussion of shared values and shared goals. Why not use the complete goal planning process in helping your team understand how to achieve the...

Unless you want to do everything yourself you can’t possibly survive and grow without a team. What are you doing to develop your team, connect them to their job and the goals of the company? In past times, managers gave detailed directions and expected them to be followed. Leadership today requires collaboration. Instead of saying what you want done you will say, “here is what we can accomplish together to achieve our goals.” The mindset of collaboration is what is needed today. Occasionally, however, I am sometimes contacted by business owners that can’t understand why there are so many poor employees and they want me to fix them. I have seen a small business were the leadership disagreed amongst themselves on the operation of the business. This situation created chaos. Team members chose the leader that they agreed with. One supervisor was very hard on her staff and had no tolerance...

Some managers like to delegate and disappear. Other are the opposite and they are control freaks. Both managers are ineffective and doomed to failure. An effective leader does not simply hand out jobs for others to do. The effective leader first puts the structure and processes in place to assure the successful execution by others. Consider the person who starts a business because they love the product, food for example. The is so much more to running a restaurant than understanding food. You need to know how to run an operation, and, in fact, you don’t have time to get into the weeds on the food. You must lead and manage and understand all elements of that business, but primarily, be able to manage and hold your employees accountable. I worked with someone who had built a very successful home services business. He did the sales, and his wife did the...

How do you create a culture of accountability? Check you leaders. Who are the perceived heroes in your organization? What values do they exhibit by their actions? Try this. Write down the culture for which you want to strive. What actions and values create that culture? Do your leaders display those values and take those actions?   If not, then it is time to work on developing your leaders. Many times, we fear discussing these actions and behaviors because we fear causing alienation. Unless we take steps to change the culture, we will continue to have failure. The culture of accountability must be cascaded down from organizational leadership to senior leaders and to all supervisors. How does a manager or supervisor hold members of the staff responsible for performance? What about an employee who needs help but fears asking for help? The results can be devastating when we fail to have accountability...

Good leaders are able to have fully accountable teams by creating a culture of accountability. The best way to accomplish is to create the culture where teams feel motivated to achieve goals. Dwight Eisenhower said, “Leadership is getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.”   Many times, we fear having a discussion about results and performance because we feel we will not change behavior and we might create alienation. However, we will have continued failure if we do nothing and refuse to hold people accountable for results. How does a manager hold members of the staff responsible for performance? What about an employee who needs help but fears asking for help? The results can be devastating when we fail to have accountability discussions. We need to talk things out about goals and measured results. This would involve: Agreeing on a task or a...

How do you create a culture of accountability and create a high performing team? The best way to accomplish this is by motivating staff and team members to be proud to be accountable. Dwight Eisenhower said, “Leadership is getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.”   Many times, we fear discussing results and performance because we feel we will not change behavior and we might create alienation. However, by avoiding we only have continued failure. Doing nothing and avoiding accountability is not an option if we want to create growth through improved results. How does a manager hold members of the staff responsible for performance? What about an employee who needs help but fears asking for help? The results can be devastating when we fail to have accountability discussions. The book, “Crucial Confrontations”, by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzer...

Achievers are always accountable for results.  And leadership fails when the leader does not hold all team members accountable.  Creating a culture of accountability requires collaboration, communication of goals, and understanding the nature of motivation.  Having conversations about accountability should be combined with empowering your team to take ownership of their work.  You need to communicate the goals and the desired outcomes, but they need to be a part of it.  Be totally transparent regarding challenges and obstacles.  Your team should not fear making mistakes but should learn from them.  Honest and direct conversations need to occur if you expect the right outcome.  When a team member is part of those conversations collaboration will occur. How does this help a manager who is responsible for team performance?  Consider what happens if you have an employee who needs to speak up and offer opinions but fears doing so?  You cannot have accountability,...

The best way to create an accountability culture is to help people to accept accountability. The best way to accomplish this is by motivating them to be accountable. Dwight Eisenhower said, “Leadership is getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.”   Understanding what motivates a person, whether it be rewards, recognition, promotion, or feeling that something is accomplished will result in developing that accountability attitude. However, you will have continued failure if you do nothing and refuse to hold people accountable for results. How does a manager hold members of the staff responsible for performance? What about an employee who needs help but fears asking for help? The results can be devastating when we fail to have accountability discussions. The book, “Crucial Confrontations”, by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzer really talks about this topic. How do we handle missed...

One of the most common requests I hear from business managers and particularly restaurant operators is the desire to learn how to properly hold people accountable for results. While you need to have the right people in place the real issue is proper management.   Many times there is a fear to have a discussion about bad behavior or disappointment so managers will hold off and say nothing or worse yet, make general announcements that are meant to address the behavior of one person. How does that help a manager who is responsible for team performance? What about an employee who needs to speak up but fears doing so? The results can be devastating when we fair to have accountability discussions. The book, “Crucial Confrontations”, by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzer really talks about this topic. How do we handle missed commitments, failed promises, and bad behavior with...

There is a very big difference between a well-run restaurant and one that is only average. An average restaurant can have great food and a great location, but if the employees and the leadership team are not doing a good job the restaurant will never become that very successful restaurant that wows its guests. A well run restaurant has a clear vision and values, a focused leadership team, and engaged and loyal employees. The ultimate result is more loyal guests, increased guest counts, and greater sales and profits. I would like to share an example of a good restaurant company that benefited from the following leadership processes and has propelled itself into becoming the premier restaurant group in its area. Spahr’s Seafood Restaurant is a multi-unit restaurant company headquartered in Des Allemands, Louisiana. It has 3 Louisiana locations— Thibodaux, Houma, and Des Allemands. Owners Donald Spahr and Brent Roger have a...

Achievers are always accountable for results. Conversely, leadership fails when the leader does not hold all team members accountable. Creating a culture of accountability requires collaboration, communication of goals, and understanding the nature of motivation. Having conversations about accountability with your staff requires several things. You need to communicate the goals and the desired outcomes. You must practice open book management and be totally transparent regarding challenges and obstacles. Your team should not fear making mistakes but should learn from them. Honest and direct conversations need to occur if you expect the right outcome. When a team member is part of those conversations collaboration will occur. How does this help a manager who is responsible for team performance? Consider what happens if you have an employee who needs to speak up and offer opinions but fears doing so? The results can be devastating when we fail to have these accountability discussions....

I have been working with a local business owner in White Plains, NY. He claims that his employees lack initiative. “Unless I tell them what to do nothing gets done. I can’t trust them to do it themselves.” I asked the owner to give me an example.   “Well,” he said, “I have given them detailed directions of exactly what I want done and they don’t do it the way I told them.” “Wait a minute,” I said, “Didn’t you just say that you wanted them to take ownership?” I think we have a conflict here because the owner wants one thing but tells his employees something else. If you want employees to take ownership you must empower them to make decisions as to the best way to get things done. If this is a source of frustration to you, here are two questions that you need to ask yourself. First of...

Many great entrepreneurs have something in common. At one point they failed in business but then they later became smashing successes. Some of these entrepreneurs include Henry Ford, Walt Disney, Mary Kay, Bill Gates, and Richard Branson. The difference between these entrepreneurs and other business failures is that these individuals learned from their failures and used those lessons to build successful enterprises. Education is a short cut to experience. Recently, three of my colleagues and I shared some lessons learned from the front. You can avoid some of the mistakes which will lead to failure by taking note of these lessons. Q. When you develop a business plan why do you put it aside and forget it. A. Many businesses put in the effort to develop a business plan but then fail to take action on the plan. The plan is a living document and it needs to result in the...

Many times when people are asked about a business issue with which they are struggling they will point to lack of follow through by members of their staff. Simply put everyone is not on the same page. Most if not all business failures have this problem in common. If you are having growth problems in your organization it might be traceable to this cause. Here is a quick checkup. Ask everyone on your team, “What are the top three goals of our organization”? If you receive exactly the same 3 answers from ALL of your staff, Congratulations! However, if you receive more than 3 answers, this may indicate the following symptoms: Poor CommunicationLoss of CustomersStaff Turnover or unengaged employeesIncreased costs in your businessTurf wars between employeesLack of teamwork How do you fix this problem? May I suggest that you start by look at the way you as a leader run your...

Would you like to learn the truth about your business? Before you answer that question I have another. Can you handle the truth? Sometimes when an organization asks for help and receives feedback it could be surprised to learn some inconvenient truths. If you want to learn how to improve your organization you will want to have an organizational assessment of your business. There are very effective assessment instruments available to generate a fact based picture of organizational performance – I utilize the D.I.AL.O.G. assessment instrument for my clients. However, it is important to have a mutual understanding of the process first. So before I begin the process I want to make sure that it will have a meaningful impact. I will ask the following questions: Will you be open to sharing the results with your organization? And if so, as part of the process I will offer to facilitate the...

We have been working with two leaders of an organization.  They have related several problems but they all had one source.  We can’t get the right people to work for us.  We spent some time interviewing them as well as a sample of people in their organization.  Wow, what a disconnect.  They are desperately looking for success.  The employees also want the organization to be successful.  That is where the similarity stopped.  The two partners could not convey the goals of the organization and they were not even communicating completely the upcoming projects.  The staff was frustrated.  One partner is totally exhausted because he feels he must do everything himself and he is afraid to hold people accountable.  The other partner has no tolerance for things and thinks lots of people should just leave.  The good news is that they can fix this if they change. The first step is to create...