How to Better Hold People Accountable

Tell me if this situation sounds familiar to you. You’ve asked someone to complete a task for you. They say they understand the task and can accomplish it by the deadline you’ve set. Then inevitably the deadline passes without hearing anything from the other person. When you follow-up, you find out it's not completed or completed to your expectations. Now what?

For some, their reaction is to fly off the handle. They may yell, guilt, threaten and/or demand that the work is completed right away. Their aggressive handling in turn sours the relationship between the two parties.

On the other hand, I’ve worked with many clients who struggle with holding others accountable because they are afraid of not being “liked”. We think holding people accountable will make us appear mean or demanding. It doesn’t. But the resentment we hold onto from not getting what we need will result in a worse outcome. 

In either scenario, the outcome is the same; not getting what you wanted and not changing anything to prevent this from happening again in the future. The person who suffers most in this scenario is you. At the end of the day, you are stuck being disappointed and stressed with no clear path forward.

But there is another way; a better way. I recommend using the “Accountability Checklist” when you are not getting the outcomes you expected from either a direct report, client, vendor, or colleague. Following these steps will help you resolve the issues for the future and strengthen your relationship with your stakeholder. And in the worst case scenario, it can even help you end a relationship as amicably and respectfully as possible.

The Accountability Checklist:

1. Seek understanding

2. Set people up for success

3. Check-in before the due date

4. Give them feedback

5. Let people self-select “in” or “out”

SEEK UNDERSTANDING

When we are disappointed by a stakeholder, we can be quick to pass judgment. The fundamental attribution error illustrates that we are often biased to assume other people’s shortcomings are due to some fixed personality trait as opposed to a temporary situational cause. However, passing judgment doesn’t actually fix the problem. Rather, you need to start by seeking to understand. Sometimes there is a reasonable explanation for why a task wasn’t completed on-time or properly.

For example, one time a client of mine was being delayed by a vendor who she has worked with in the past and then received poor quality products. Rather than getting mad, she got curious. When she inquired about what caused the issue she found out her main contact at the vendor had gone to the hospital while working on her project and then passed away a few days later. This was an extenuating circumstance that she never would have guessed and her delicate handling of the situation helped her communicate effectively to her clients while also supporting this long-term vendor.

What we can learn from this is to start by asking questions. Try simply asking, “What got in the way of you being able to complete this task on-time?” Once you can get a bit more information as to what may be causing the issue, you can better determine how to proceed. Often, as the manager or business owner, you may be in a better position to help resolve an issue or at least be better equipped to explain to your stakeholders what the hold up is. 

Either way, you can’t fix an issue if you don’t know what the issue is. If your car breaks down, it’s easier to fix it if you can figure out what is causing the problem. And in these situations at work, it's better to work to resolve the issue and prevent it from happening again than yelling at the person and fixing nothing going forward. Yelling may make you temporarily feel better by releasing your tension, but it does nothing to actual resolve the issue or prevent the issue from happening again in the future.

SET PEOPLE UP FOR SUCCESS

After gathering some initial information on what might have caused the issue, the next step is to offer to partner with the person to fix the situation. As a leader or business owner, whenever someone doesn’t deliver when or how they say they will, your first thought should be, “What did I do wrong?”. It is our job to set people up for success by communicating effectively our needs and expectations. If someone doesn’t meet our expectations, that is partly on us. However, our knee-jerk reaction is usually to put blame on the other person. I advocate for seeing things as a partnership and seeking to understand what you can do better to set this partnership up for success. 

To approach this problem solving as a partner, try asking a question like, “What could I have done better to ensure this was completed on time?” or “What can I do to help you be more successful next time?” By asking these questions you’ll either identify where you can support the person to ensure a better outcome or create an opportunity for the other person to recognize their own shortcomings, if it was their fault. Either way, you are working to fix the issue not just for now, but also in the future.

CHECK-IN BEFORE THE DUE DATE

When you have an important deadline or project you are overseeing and are relying on someone else to get the work done, you should never wait until the deadline to see if the project will be delivered. Why? Because if they miss the deadline, you will be strapped for time to fix the situation. Basically, it's too late by that point.

Even though we’d love for everyone to proactively reach out when there are issues with a project, the reality is that not everyone does. There are lots of reasons why people get stuck on projects such as not being sure where to start, they are missing a detail that prevents them from moving forward, they have questions, or they are unsure what you are looking for in the final output. In all of these situations, many people end up procrastinating the work, not communicating about their concerns due to overwhelm or embarrassment, and thus they miss their deadlines. 

The easiest way to pre-empt this negative outcome is to simply check-in with the person in advance of the deadline to catch any issues and help them get unstuck. Try asking questions like, “Are you still on track to deliver this by the deadline?” or “Are there any questions or issues that have arisen that I can help address?”

Waiting until the deadline to find out that information will only frustrate you more. And when we are frustrated, it becomes harder to communicate to people in a productive and professional manner. So make it easier on yourself and just check-in along the way.

GIVE FEEDBACK

Anytime I have clients complain about someone not delivering a project or task the first question I ask them is, “Did you tell them this?” The answer is almost always “No”. As a result, the person they are ranting about has little to no idea that they did something wrong. And that is actually the bigger problem.

People will not change their behavior if they don’t have a reason to change it. The majority of people you work with have good intentions and want to be seen as good workers, colleagues, vendors, clients and/or partners. As a result, if they realize they have hurt someone unintentionally, they will be motivated to fix the issue. To facilitate this, we need to give them feedback. 

To give effective feedback, start by sharing what the issue is (as simply as possible) and explain the impact. The impact is the most important piece as it becomes the motivation for changing their behavior. After sharing the feedback and the impact, be sure to come up with a plan on what will be done differently next time to avoid the same mistake. This is where accountability really shows up by ensuring there is a plan in place to fix the problem. It also allows the other person to still maintain a sense of autonomy by dictating the fix for themselves rather than it being imposed on them. This will also help motivate them to actually follow through on that change.

LET PEOPLE SELF-SELECT IN OR OUT

If you’ve worked with the other person to identify the issue, offered to help them, checked in with them, given them feedback, and you still are having issues with their performance, then it's time for the final step. This is often the first step people take, when it should really be the last step.

At this point, you lay out the steps you have taken to help them meet your expectations and reiterate the disappointing results you have seen. You now have two options: Fire them or let them make the decision themselves. At this point in your relationship, you have given them more clarity around your expectations and the opportunity to improve. If you wish to end the relationship and fire this employee, vendor, or client, you can feel at ease knowing you did everything you could. 

However, there is another option where you let the other person decide for themself whether they are ready to recommit to the goal or fire themselves. To do this you should restate your expectations and ask them if they will be able to meet your expectations. If they say yes, ask them what they will do differently this time or what will change to make you feel more confident there will be a different outcome. In the end it's your choice, but you’ve now allowed both parties to feel more comfortable with the decision. 

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Holding people accountable doesn’t simply mean telling them what you want and berating them if your expectations aren’t met. It also doesn’t mean letting things slide and giving infinite chances to people. Rather, holding people accountable is a process that involves effort, communication, and problem solving from both parties. If there is one insight to take from this, it's to first be curious about why something didn’t meet your expectations. With more information comes more power to resolve a situation, which means less stress for you.