Executive Podcast #338: 3 Signs of Accountability and Performance

Perry Holley:
Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results. Hi, I’m Perry Holley, a Maxwell Leadership facilitator and coach.

Chris Goede:
And I’m Chris Goede, executive vice president with Maxwell Leadership. Welcome and thank you for joining. As we get started, I want to encourage you to visit this podcast. Click on it on the. On wherever you get your podcast. And if you go there, we have a form for you. Fill that out. We’re going to talk about things on this podcast that we always have, about what’s going on in the world.

Chris Goede:
Not the world in general, but in your corporate world, in your teams. What does that look like? And so, man, we would encourage you to fill out that form and give us some ideas and some thoughts maybe about what you’re challenged with. And then more importantly, if you need help, we would love to be able to help you do that in the field, directly with your team. Go to MaxwellLeadership.com/Podcast and you can also do that there as well. Well, today’s topic, and I love this, we’re going to talk about three signs of accountability and performance. And what I love about this title you came up with is that I feel like one is tied to the other. Right. Like you can have them separate, but, man, if you can figure it out, they’re going to flow together really well.

Perry Holley:
Yeah. If your team’s not accountable, your performance is probably lagging. And if the performance is lagging, I’m guessing people.

Chris Goede:
That’s right.

Perry Holley:
Accountable. So.

Chris Goede:
That’s right.

Perry Holley:
Yeah. This comes up on coaching calls from time to time, and I just had a recent one where the executive said that my team just doesn’t seem to be taking accountability. We’re not making our number. And nobody seems to, you know, to be taking accountability. That’s often a little bit of a catch. You know, it’s fun to say. I, you know, I hear people say, oh, they’re not motivated. Well, what does that mean? Okay, they’re not being accountable.

Perry Holley:
What does that mean? What do you seen? But we had a fantastic conversation, and it occurred to me as I glommed on to my definition, what I love about accountability being ownership. The three things that I talked about with this leader and others was, and the three things that I would talk about today are, is the team, are they maintaining a standard of performance? We’re going to talk more about what that is. Are they demonstrating ownership? This is accountability. And, and are they overcoming the circumstances that we call that excuses that get in the way of accountability. Now, just to give credit where I picked up a lot of this, what I love about accountability was from the Oz principle. And the authors there really talked about accountability being that you make a decision to rise above the circumstances. And they’re always circumstances, always to demonstrate ownership, to get the result.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Perry Holley:
And so I have this going in my head when people are telling me we’re not getting the result. Well, are people taking ownership? Are they? And then they, this, this gentleman said they’re not accountable and we’re not getting results. So that’s where it all comes from. And I want to talk about those three things because I think they’re easy to say and maybe a little harder to define.

Chris Goede:
I think they’re easy to say. And I think even myself and. Or other leaders that we, we work with, they would go, oh yeah, yeah, we have all those. But then they’re still asking you on a coaching call, like, what’s going on? How come we’re not producing the results? And I love the simplicity of this. Not easy to do, but simple. And then. So we’ll dive into that. So let’s start with number one.

Chris Goede:
Are they maintaining your standard of performance? Key word right there. And I think it’s a great place to start of all of these. It’s like we have to set the framework now. But what this is implying in our notes here today is that they actually have a standard for what the performance is. What does that look like?

Perry Holley:
And what is a standard of performance?

Chris Goede:
And who sets that 100 and a lot of leaders. John talks about momentum where. Right. Momentum can be your best friend as a leader and you can be producing the results without a standard performance. But boy, when the tide turns, if you don’t have that standard of performance to fall back on, those results are going to go away and you’ll be like, well, what’s happening? And you don’t have anything to refer to as the foundation.

Perry Holley:
In fact, this leader that brought this up, the comment was, well, we got some bad habits during good times. I thought, okay, yeah, so now times are tightening up a little bit. Is now you’re. We found out we don’t have a standard of performance, so what do we do that. So how does one establish a standard of performance? What does it even. How do you know if you have one or don’t?

Chris Goede:
Yeah, what does this look like? Right, so let’s, let’s dive in. We’re going to do this for Each one of these and just kind of pick it apart a little bit. So what is it? What is the standard performance? So for me, when I thought about it, I go, okay, it’s specific, it’s actionable. Things that are tied to what my end result is. We’ve always heard start with the end in mind. Well, we know what our KPIs are. Some are revenue generating, some are cost savings, whatever they might be. You know what your quota or your KPIs are.

Chris Goede:
Well, then you got to back into that and you got to say, all right, here’s what we are going to do. Specifically, here are the actions. What does that look like? And it’s going to lead to that. That becomes your standard of performance and that’s your expectation as a leader in the room. I think about it a lot on the sales side, but it’s in every role. Manufacturing doesn’t matter what it is. You had need to have a standard of performance for every single team member.

Perry Holley:
It’s how we do things. It’s our process. It’s the standard that we hold ourselves to. I, I think about a book I picked up years ago, but it was the late football coach Bill Walsh was, I think was coaching the 49ers back in the Joe Montana days. But he had a book that was titled the Score Will Take Care Of Itself. I go, what football coach in his life ever said that? Yeah, so I’m fascinated. And I start reading and Walsh, his whole take was we have a standard of performance. We don’t practice on how to run the score.

Perry Holley:
We practice on how to do our job. We practice on what each person’s role is and the standard with which they do their job. And I love that. So we’ll go back to your example about the sales team is the sales team. And I know your sales team. They have a process, they have a standard. I don’t see them wandering around the office chitty chatting at the water cooler. They are on the phone calling clients, calling prospects, following up on leads.

Perry Holley:
They know they need to make so many calls a day, so many a week. They have so many leads to follow up. They, they have small, seemingly insignificant metrics that aren’t tied. We’re going to get to the revenue, but that’s not what they’re, they’re, they’re trying to get a daily action. That’s right, what they call the dailies that they get done.

Chris Goede:
That’s it. And the, and the reason for this, the purpose of having this for me is it’s what we can hold each other accountable to. So we’re bringing on a brand new team member and is going to help with our marketing and branding of what we’re doing in organizations around the world. And had her in the office this week and we started talking about how at the very top of the pipeline is what she’s responsible for. What do these activities look like here? Here’s what it’s going to be, here’s how specifically we need to do it. And oh, by the way, then it’s going to show this result if you do these activities. Because we have a track record, I want you to 10x those results. But here’s kind of the standard of it.

Chris Goede:
And then as we get in, let’s say an individual is not hitting whatever your organization or industry is. Let’s say they’re not hitting their KPIs. If you have that foundation of that standard of performance, that’s what you can hold them accountable to. Hey, we, we agree. This is what we trained on. You got to train them on it, right? You got to make sure that you stay consistent with them. But that’s what you. I think the greatest thing about that is it’s easy to hold somebody accountable when you have that in place.

Chris Goede:
It’s not if you don’t have that clarity around that.

Perry Holley:
If you’ve set a standard performance and it’s not being followed, are there indicators of that? Are there things you see or look for?

Chris Goede:
Well, I think that there are milestones along the standard of performance, especially when it’s tied to a certain metric that you can watch along the way. And if they begin to miss one, miss two or three, then all of a sudden you go, the outcome is not going to be where it is. And so I think in this standard performance you gotta have little pillars along the way that you’re watching. You mentioned earlier, how many calls are you making if you’re in the sales side? Well, I know that if you’re starting to short those calls, then x the proposals are gonna be start dropping down. Well, then you get all the way back and you go, oh, well, the problem, the root of the problem. There’s this phrase that sometimes I’ll use, I’ll be like, hey, when there’s no fruit, there’s a root problem, right? So go all the way back to the root. And the root oftentimes is the foundation of what you’re doing and that’s the standard of performance.

Perry Holley:
And I noticed on our weekly calls with the team, you always the first part of the business part of the meeting is you show the numbers and that. But it has to do. It starts with how many leads against our. And so we. The person that’s generating the leads then goes to the sales and then how many calls do they. So having that standard that we do these certain things and we do it this way to this quality level and we hold each other accountable. Which goes to the second piece of this, which was, are they. You know, I love this, this definition of accountability again, but are you demonstrating ownership? And again, the standard performance is observable.

Perry Holley:
And that’s what I was telling this executive. These are three signs that are observable in your business to say, are we keeping the standard performance and are we demonstrating ownership and making a personal decision that.

Chris Goede:
I own that.

Perry Holley:
Yeah, but what do you think about demonstrating ownership? Can you. Are these signs you. This is observable.

Chris Goede:
I think 100. That’s why I like to use the word demonstrating. Yeah. Because you can say ownership. A lot of people say, hey, take ownership, take ownership. What does that. What does that look like? But are you demonstrating? And that. That comes back to the action, like, what are the actionable items that you’re doing in the standard of performance in order to demonstrate ownership? So for us, when you talk about ownership, it’s like, hey, we’re going to take responsibility for the results.

Chris Goede:
I think one of the ways we’ll get there a little further is how do you know when somebody’s not taking ownership? Right. They’re deflecting the fact that they’re not responsible for those results. There’s going to be all kinds of. In this. Your third point. Circumstances are going to be, well, I can’t because. And you’re deflecting versus saying it’s on me. Like, whatever it is, it’s on me.

Chris Goede:
And so as you’re demonstrating that, I think you’re going to be able to see those action items in people because they’re being responsible for the results and what that looks like.

Perry Holley:
How do. How do leaders get accountability wrong? Then what do you think is. Is it they’re not thinking in terms of ownership or. I know I was brought up in the big. You know, I was in a Fortune 10 company for a long time and accountability was who’s to blame when something goes wrong? Like, who’s accountable for this mess. I didn’t find that helpful. Yeah. So I like this when the Oz principle guys, the authors here, introduce us these words around demonstrating ownership and making a choice to demonstrate ownership that I’m deciding I own this.

Perry Holley:
Yeah, I love that. And so now I know who’s accountable for that, who owns it. But what do you see with accountability in your world?

Chris Goede:
Well, here, let me give you a phrase that’s even worse than that. Okay. I’ve heard it said where it goes, hey, whose throat do I choke? Right? Like, who is responsible for it at the end of the day? Because if you have. So if you have too many people that are. Are the leader or taking responsibility, then it’s like what happens. Everybody starts pointing at each other either way. But I think from an accountability standpoint with people are taking ownership, where it goes wrong is that there’s not clarity on the front end. We just talked a minute ago about the.

Chris Goede:
When you look at, say, hey, what is it that we’re going to do through this process to hit our KPIs? So if you don’t communicate that clearly and there’s not clarity, then it’s a little harder to hold somebody accountable because you get into a conversation and you sit there and you go, well, you didn’t say that. That’s not what I heard. And then you get into everything that we’ve talked about in the past about communication and listening. And I often will say, hey, so repeat back to me real quick, like, can you tell me where we’re at on what is our KPIs? What’s the standard performance so that we’re on the same page? And then I would say also, where they get accountability a little bit wrong. And I don’t do it perfect either. We get busy, we get our schedules, we’re all over the place. You and I travel, we’re with clients. Is that if you don’t constantly reinforce it, even when they’re doing it well.

Perry Holley:
Yeah.

Chris Goede:
What’d you say in the beginning? One of your coaching clients read the good times, good habits developed. Even in good times, if you’re not reinforcing and not being lackadaisical on it and just sticking to it, what ends up happening is then they feel a little bit like, oh, I can’t hold Perry accountable because I didn’t consistently repeat the message. I didn’t consistently hold them accountable. I didn’t get to that. So I think that’s. Those are two things that come to mind when you ask that question around where we get accountability wrong with people that don’t take ownership.

Perry Holley:
What do you. If you were in the office and you. Maybe it’s in a team meeting or it’s just around the office, what demonstrates ownership? What words are there? Actions, what do you see Yeah, I.

Chris Goede:
Love when someone owns it right away, like, whether I don’t know the backstory or the context, because I’ve been on the other side. I am on the other side, just to a different leader, right? Like when John comes into a meeting, John Maxwell or Mark, and we missed a KPI, whatever that might be, it could be a customer service KPI. Like, my first thing is, if that falls under my leadership, I go, it’s on me. I missed it, Right? Do you own it? And I think the other thing is, I love to see this because I’m in this environment. You would do as well. Not only do I like ownership of it, but then the teachability behind why they missed it. So, hey, here’s what I learned from it. Does anybody else have anything that they saw on that I could have done differently, or we could have done differently as a team or whatever it might be? And then you take that.

Chris Goede:
We had a meeting a couple of days ago, and we’re struggling in one of our numbers in a certain area, and one of our lead team members is like, hey, I got an idea. What do you think about this? And if you did that, what do you think about that? And I’m like, oh, yeah, that’s brilliant, because we’re not hitting the numbers. It’s on me. So I’m taking notes. And I was like, man, I appreciate that. Like, I want to learn from what we’re not doing. And so I think to your question, ownership. When I.

Chris Goede:
When I see it, they’re taking responsibility right away. They’re talking about what they learned from the situation so that we can learn from them. And then they’re asking for feedback and they’re teachable.

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Perry Holley:
And what just the third point of our observable three signs would be going to the obviously. What. What do you hear when they’re not demonstrating ownership is excuses or what he calls with the term they use not choosing to overcome the circumstances. So coming more what do you do you hear this? Does it come up as excuses or blame or I’m the victim or it was too dark, it was too cold, it was too late. I couldn’t get it done.

Chris Goede:
Right. Right. The dog ate my homework. Whatever we used to use in the past. Yeah, there’s lots of excuses. So there’s a blame. Right. This didn’t happen.

Chris Goede:
Didn’t have enough resources, whatever it might be. Hey, leadership team. Didn’t get back in time. All of those things. Hey, I didn’t hear back from you, whoever it is. The other thing too is that I think when I see people waiting on instructions or waiting to take the next step, like if you own something. Okay, let’s, let’s take a personal example. You love woodworking.

Chris Goede:
Right? Right. And so you own that. And you recently did a project for Sarah and myself and for our house, and you took responsibility, even if. Right. The measurements came from me, which was a big problem. And you kept saying, well, I understand that, but I own this and I want it to work and I want to fit. I was like, you understand who’s measuring for you? Like, we did a long distance because we live an hour or so apart and Perry wanted to come over and I was like, hey, I got this. And Perry’s like, oh God, I got.

Perry Holley:
You don’t got this.

Chris Goede:
You don’t got this. Right. But you, you, you just kept moving forward. You weren’t waiting on the measurements for me. Matter of fact, when I finally got the measurement to you, like, hey, look what I already. So it’s the same thing on teams. Like, I love to see initiative. I’d much rather pull somebody back than have to be.

Chris Goede:
Let’s go.

Perry Holley:
Right, right, right.

Chris Goede:
And so I think that shows me a little bit of ownership in what they’re doing. As well. And so that th. Those are just a couple of things that are big to me that I don’t see in people when they’re not demonstrating ownership.

Perry Holley:
Yeah, it’s really great. Then I think about, as a leader, what can we do to help overcome circumstances, as I think go back to the previous one. Are they demonstrating ownership? Do they know they own it? Have we communicated clearly what you own? So this may be a roles and responsibilities type of a conversation that, you know, that’s on you. And then I love what you just said about are they demonstrating ownership by. You don’t have to keep asking about it. They keep coming. They come prepared. They know I own this and I’ve not made progress.

Perry Holley:
And then. Why haven’t you made progress? And then I’m listening. Are you going to give me a circumstance, an excuse, or are you going to tell me what you. Yes, I found out it was harder than I thought, but here’s what I’ve done about it.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Perry Holley:
Okay. That’s demonstrating ownership to me. And things happen. We know things happen.

Chris Goede:
Yes. And you’re going to miss goals and you’re going to fail and all that kind of stuff. That’s great.

Perry Holley:
Circumstances are going to be there. But are you letting the circumstance derail your ownership? I can observe that with my eyes. I can see and hear around the office. I’m. I’m sensing you don’t have full ownership of this. So other things leaders can do is other than just making sure that, you know, you own it.

Chris Goede:
What do you think about it? So this is a culture thing. Ah. And so we talk a lot about culture of, Of. Of an office, of a team, an environment. Right. And it’s our responsibility as a team lead whatever it is to drive that culture. You know, we talk a lot about team engagement. And you brought a stat to me where it talked about 81% of the people that are engaged, it’s because of who they directly report to, not the.

Chris Goede:
The boss’s boss, as some people talk about it. I think it’s the same thing here. I think no matter what size team, where you’re at in the organization, or what you’re leading, you could be leading a volunteer team. Remember, influence doesn’t come with a title. And so I would say, hey, in that case, I want to make sure that on my team or what we are trying to accomplish, here’s the culture. Right. We are going to be accountable to each other and we’re going to be clear on what that looks like. And then you go through this process.

Chris Goede:
So I would say make it part of the culture. And then the other thing is going back to clarity. It’s expectation that this is going to happen. Not a suggestion. I bet it’s some conversations under my leadership where they’re like, well, um, I didn’t know that was exactly what I was supposed to do. I. I thought we were just talking about some options. And then I went and did this.

Perry Holley:
Right.

Chris Goede:
So then after I took a long breath and walk around the office and didn’t come back. No, I’m just kidding. I went and I was like, oh, okay, it’s on me. So I didn’t communicate clearly. And I have this little phrase that I use periodically with my team, which is individual responsibility, collective pride. And so we have to take individual responsibility for every single role that we do because it funnels up to the bigger picture so that we can collectively have pride as a team. But if we don’t go through these three bringing to us today, then we won’t be able to do that so.

Perry Holley:
Well, I like that. And I may have to add a fourth after something you just said is that they, they’re waiting that the fourth observable sign might be empowerment. Are they. Are you observing empowered people and how. And how do you not be empowered as they keep asking or waiting for you? Yeah, they keep checking on you. What do you think? I didn’t take action. Why not? I don’t have an answer for that. Well, you’re not demonstrating ownership.

Chris Goede:
That’s good.

Perry Holley:
You’re not keeping up our standard performance and you’re letting circumstances in the way. So.

Chris Goede:
All right, I like that. All right, so let me, let me just wrap up as we talking about this today. I want to encourage every leader that’s out there. Remember, influence is leadership. It’s not a title that this starts with you. No matter what it is, it could be something simple at home and it could be you running thousands of team members and whatever it might look like. The standard performance. Demonstrating ownership and overcoming circumstances cannot be part of your culture if it doesn’t start with you.

Chris Goede:
Meaning you have to model it. You and I talk all the time about the fact that leadership is contagious and it’s a visual sport. And so if we want this to be part of our culture and part of our team, and we want them to model all of this, we have to model it first. We have to go first. And so I just want to encourage everybody out there as you’re taking a look at this and you’re looking at your team, whatever you might be working on, maybe to Perry’s point, you’re in this frustration moment right now and you’re like, we’re just not performing and I don’t know why. Yeah, we have these three things. Do you really? And then does everybody clearly understand what they are? And maybe you just have to hit the reset button, but hit the reset button first. With you, maybe the team begins to see a little bit of difference and they’re like, Chris is a little bit different this week, this month, this quarter.

Chris Goede:
And then after you’ve modeled that for a while, you got to sit down and you got to really dive into the standard performance. Demonstrating ownership, that’s your expectation, not a suggestion. And then overcoming circumstances.

Perry Holley:
I like your point. It starts with you. If you’re not keeping those three. Yeah, there’s going to be a problem to enforce those three. All right, Terrific, Chris. Thank you so much. And again, if you’d like to know more about our offerings, if you want to leave us a comment or a question, if you’d like to see what other podcasts we have in our podcast family, you can do all of that at MaxwellLeadership.com/Podcast. You can leave us a comment or a question there.

Perry Holley:
We love hearing from you and very grateful you spend this time with us. That’s all today from the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast.

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