Command and control isn’t just a mindset and a style of management (though it is both those things). What we don’t often talk about is the power that rests with people in management roles.

Traditional managers have power, and that power comes from different sources. Part of what rankles people in traditional organizations is the way managers wield power. I’m not suggesting throwing out all managers or eliminating all controls–controls help ensure a system is functioning within appropriate boundaries. That’s the case whether we are looking at the financial system, training system, administrative system or any other system in the organization. But controls are different from keeping people in line through positional power–which is the essence of Tayloristic management.

The notion that managers must keep people in line assumes that those people are neither responsible nor intelligent–that left to their own devices, they will make irresponsible and stupid mistakes. In many organizations, managers say they want people and teams to be responsible and accountable, then treat them like children. Let me give a concrete example. One manager I know exhorted people to take responsibility for their professional development. Then when a developer asked to attend training, the manager grilled him on the nature of the training. After the grilling, the manager asked the developer to produce documentation. Finally, the manager rejected the developer’s request because the no one “responsible” in the company had vetted the training. This is an extreme example, but one that makes the point. When managers tell people to take responsibility, then force them to ask for approval, they are sending a mixed message. You can guess which part of the message people believe. They hear, “you are not capable of making a wise decision, I must exert my authority to prevent you from doing something irresponsible or stupid.”

One way to dis-aggregate power is to delegate some power to teams. For example, you could delegate authority for a portion of a training budget to a team. Establish guidelines, (e.g., training must be relevant to current or future projects, or must increase capacity in some other relevant way). Then let team members assess what training they need to improve their capability. Guidelines act as controls, within which the team has autonomy. Both are necessary. The team exists within the context of the organization. Managers do have a fiduciary responsibility. But managers don’t have to force other adults to come as supplicants to fulfill that responsibility. Other areas that are easy to delegate are tools used within the team, books and periodicals, and conferences.

People in management roles can share hiring decisions with the teams who will work with the new person. Rather than have individual managers make decisions about promotions, have a panel. Place professional and career development with mentors, instead of with the manager who evaluates or supports the team.

When power isn’t concentrated with a group of people (managers), there are many more possibilities for creativity, partnership, and empowering leadership.

(This is an excerpt from an interview in Lean Magazine, published by Softhouse.se)

This article originally appeared on gantthead.com 

In the early days of agile, some pundits (and developers) cried, “We don’t need no stinking managers.”

By now, most people realize that organizations still need management (and people in management roles) after they adopt agile methods. However, if those organizations want all the benefits of agile, managers must also change the way they work.

Managers can play an even more valuable role in organizations as teams become self-organizing and take on more responsibility. But if managers want teams to take more self-responsibility, they need to shift their focus from monitoring the day-to-day work of individuals and let teams grow up.  Here are three common areas of confusing as managers and teams negotiate their new relationships.

Messing with Team Membership

No group is a team the first day they are together.  Becoming a team takes time–time to learn how each person fits in and contributes, time to lean how to work together, time to develop group identity and trust.

If you want the benefit of the team effect, provide the enabling conditions:

• A clear and compelling goal
• Appropriate constraints
• Stable membership
• Time for the team to gel.

Plucking people off the team or poking people into the team causes a re-set in the team forming process. Mess with the membership often enough, and people will stop trying. When team membership feels like a revolving door, individuals won’t put in the effort to form team bonds. You may get a group that functions reasonably well, but you’ll miss out on the team effect.

That doesn’t mean that team membership never changes. People leave (or are asked to leave) and people join. Hiring new people for a team should always be a joint decision, involving team members. And when people are asked to leave it shouldn’t be mysterious to the team why that happened. (For more on hiring as a collaborative process, see this article.)

Delegating then De-delegating Decisions

As a general rule, delegating decision making to the people who are closest to the work is an excellent principle. Doing so can remove bottlenecks, lead to faster decision-making, and improve customer responsiveness.

Except when it doesn’t, as happens when a manager and a team haven’t clarified who makes which decisions. Or when a manager delegates a decision, but doesn’t clarify boundaries or constraints around that decision.

When managers see that a team is about to make a poor decision, they may be tempted to countermand that decision. Countermanding a decision prevents the problems that would have been caused by a faulty decision. But it leads do a different kind of problem–loss of trust between the team and the manager.  Team members may feel the manager wasn’t serious about delegating decisions in the first place. They may believe that he only delegates decisions on the condition that the team decides exactly what the manager would choose.  Such situations will damage a mangers relationship with the team.

If the team makes a decision that will result in real harm to the company, a manager must intervene. How he intervenes makes a difference. To prevent real harm to the relationship, refrain from blame. Acknowledging that key constraints weren’t clear or communicated will help. Use the opportunity to learn from the mistake, and to set appropriate boundaries for team decisions.

Strategic decisions belong to management. But tactical decisions, course corrections, and decisions that affect day-to-day work belong with the development team. Some decisions fall in between, and require both management and front-line input.

Work with the team to identify which decisions are squarely with the team, which ones you share, and which ones are management decisions. Then set boundaries, about cost, impact, and scope.

For example, when it comes to hiring a new team member, the decision about what skills and qualities to look for in a new team member is probably a joint decision.  The choice among candidates is best done as a recommendation from the team (which you may over-ride at your own peril). But the offer and salary are neither a team decision or a joint decision. Employment terms and salary (in most organizations) are management decisions.

Clouding Team Commitments

One of the secrets ingredients for team success is that team members make commitments to each other to complete their goal. Peer pressure can be a wonderful thing. But commitments can lead to conflict, it’s not clear who makes commitments to whom about what.

Fred, a member of an agile team, participated in a planning meeting where he and his teammates committed to deliver six stories during the next iteration.  Then Fred when to the team manager, Megan, to get approval for a two week vacation, starting the second week of the next sprint–as he had done every spring for the last four years.

But this time, the result was a mess. The other team members were mad at Fred, for committing his effort to the team, when he knew he wouldn’t be in the office for half the next sprint.  The team members were mad at Megan, too, for giving Fred permission when they thought he should have talked to them first. Fred and Megan felt attacked–for doing what they’d always done.

Managers are still point-person for matters of company policy. But work commitment a happen between the team as a whole and their product owner or customer. Megan and Fred landed in the middle of that. In the end, Fred took his vacation. The team needed to renegotiate their commitment to the product owner. Megan attended the meeting to explain what had happened to the product owner.

When Fred (gratefully) returned from two weeks at the cabin with his three kids and the in-laws, they all had a sit down. They talked about which commitments the team could make, what the team could negotiate among themselves and where Megan needed to be involved for legal reasons.

I hear managers say they want teams to take more responsibility. The best way to make that happen is for managers to stop acting in ways that take responsibility away from teams. Start with these three areas.  Then, spend some time examining your relationship with the team. What else could the team do that would enhance their autonomy and responsibility? What else are you doing that might confuse the team about how much responsibility they really have?

Every team needs leadership, even self-organizing teams.

When I make this statement, some people assume I mean that every team needs a designated leader.  I can’t blame them, most people are accustomed to thinking of leadership residing in a role or a charismatic individual—a “born” leader.

On self-organizing teams, there isn’t one leader.  Agile teams may have a coach; however, the coaches job is to help the team see where they need to improve and help them learn specific skills.  The coach may lead at times, but the coach isn’t the leader.  In fact, if the team looks at the coach as the leader, they’re in trouble. Holding up one person as leader will hamper team development.

Before we go any further, let’s define leadership: leadership is creating an environment where everyone can contribute to solve the problem at hand.

On teams that function well, every member of the team leads.  Each person takes responsibility for helping the team move forward.

But acting at random or on gut feel isn’t enough. Empowering leaders can be more effective when they work out of a model that helps them make sense of what they see happening on the team.

One such model is the MOIJ model articulated by Jerry Weinberg.

1. Every team needs motivation—and I don’t mean pep talks, cheerleading and extrinsic rewards.  Teams do best when they are intrinsically motivated, when they derive satisfaction from the work and team relationships.

Team members lead when they work for appropriate harmony and consensus—and engage in constructive conflict.  Leaders pay attention to how other team members are participating, so that everyone can use their talents and creativity. Leaders pay attention to how the whole team is working together, and building a team culture that supports achievement and good working relationships.

When only one person on the team pays attention to motivation, the team doesn’t learn how to create the environment for their own success.

2. Teams need organization.  Organization is more than the boxes on an org chart.  Organization includes physical space, time, and structure.

Leaders make sure that the workspace supports the team with appropriate equipment and information. Teams need someone to lead by pay attention to commitments and the ticking clock.  They need to figure out how to allocate the work so that it gets done and there’s a balance between people expanding their skills and relying on experts who can do the work most quickly. Teams need structures that help them work effectively together, for example, working agreements or configuration management.

When only one person pays attention to organization, he comes across as a nag. After a while, people ignore nags.

3. Teams need information.  They need to see a vision, generate ideas, bring in data and analyze and connect the dots.

Along with a flow of ideas, sometimes, a teams need a Devils Advocate.  A Devil’s Advocate challenges habitual thinking, checks solutions against foundational principles and values.  Without a Devil’s Advocate, teams can slip into group think, or miss risks and weaknesses when they consider options. But like the nagging organizer, no one enjoys a habitual naysayer. When there’s only one Devil’s Advocate he’s likely to be marginalized.  Like all the other leadership activities, it’s important to spread this one around.

Team members also need to know when they have too many ideas, and it’s time to slow the flow. We usually don’t think of following as a leadership activity.  But I’ve seen teams where everyone wanted to have his or her way.  I’ve seen teams sidetracked when members keep throwing in new ideas each time they come close to a decision.  Those teams argue and debate endlessly and don’t make forward progress.  Knowing when to zip the lips and follow is leadership, too.

4. Finally, every team needs people who can recognize when they are stuck and need a jiggle.  My favorite jiggle is a paradoxical question: “How can we make the situation worse?” Simply commenting on the stuck-ness can sometimes shake a team out of their rut. Changing position—standing up if the team has been sitting–can jiggle the team into productive action, as well.

***

What happens when only one person on the team—whether a formal or informal leader—tries to do all the leadership?  I suppose there are the rare individuals who can do it all. But on most teams that aren’t sharing leadership, are missing some leadership ingredients.  When teams rely on one individual they flounder when the leader isn’t available.  Worse, they don’t develop their own capabilities and slide into dependency.

Leadership is about making sure the team is functioning well and creating an environment where everyone can do his or her best work.  And it takes a whole team of leaders to make a self-organizing team.

Some pundits proclaim that leadership rests on charisma, the ability to create a vision, or “presence.” Teams do need a vision and a compelling goal.  But do teams need one charismatic leader? No.Teams need leaders of a different sort. Teams need leaders who don’t need to be out in front, who are able to work quietly, creating an environment where everyone on the team is empowered. Such leaders–empowering leaders—may not get the glory. They do help teams get work done, invite creativity, and build capacity.  How do they work? Not by rousing speeches, through followers or by exuding some magical stuff. Empowering leaders create an environment where everyone is empowered. The act on observation, not gut feel or random action.

As Yogi Berra pointed out, you can observe a lot just by watching.  But what should you watch? How do you make meaning of what you see?

We are bombarded with sensory input, and our brains are built to find patterns. They are also build to filter out data.  Empowering leaders can’t rely on innate observation abilities.  They need to hone their awareness to make their interpretations reliable guides for action. Empowering leaders hone awareness in three areas:

• Self-awareness. They know their own strengths, patterns, blind spots.
• Team Awareness. They understand group dynamics and understand that teams are goal oriented social units.
• System Awareness. They grasp that the team exists within a larger system, which includes the organization as a whole, other teams, customers, work flows, and policies.

The average person knows quite a bit about him or herself.  He knows what he likes, and what he doesn’t like. He probably knows whether he likes to decide quickly, shoot from the hip, or examine all the options before choosing. He probably knows whether he is mad, sad or glad at any given moment. He probably thinks he knows what he’s good at.

Average self-knowledge isn’t good enough for leaders.  Empowering leaders observe their own thoughts and feelings, so they can manage their emotional responses. They separate the data from the interpretations they make of data. They understand their thought patterns, and how they respond to stress. They understand how that not everyone sees the world the same way (and that’s a good thing).

Empowering leaders learn to observe the team and discern patterns of behavior on the group level that effect that ability of the group to get work done. They notice who offers ideas, who challenges ideas. They notice when one person consistently interrupts another team member. Leaders hone their ability to notice the roles people take in group discussions, and pick up on non-verbal cues. This is the information that allows them to determine what is happening, and what (if anything) is needed to adjust the environment so everyone is empowered and able to work. Empowering leaders notice how the physical arrangements affect work, how information is flowing (or not), and when the constraints on the team are too few or too many.

Finally, empowering leaders pay attention to the context, the world the team works in.  How does work flow into the team? What are the relationships with other parts of the organization? Are their policies and procedure that are hindering the team? An empowering leader on a team may not be able to eliminate such factors himself. But he knows how modify the team environment to lessen harm, and to influence out side the team to achieve change.

Awareness gives leaders the ability to make sense of the data. Then, they can choose from a variety of responses that will influence the environment to empower all members of the team to contribute.

I recently talked to a group that’s forming a new “change leadership” team.  Part of the work of the team is improving the organization, and part is capacity building. Four of the people on the team are folks with technical backgrounds who are viewed as having potential to be future leaders in the organization. The fifth person is a manager.

By definition, the manager will have a different role on the team. Because of his role in the organization, he’s accustomed to taking a  broader view of the organization.  He’s got more experience steering change.  He’s led and managed teams.  He has more authority, and access to resources. He can approve expenditures.

One of the tasks for this group in becoming a team is to clarify the managers role, and identify decision boundaries. This is something I do with self-organizing teams. It’s especially important when the manager sits on the team. I find that it helps both the manager and team members break out of the common “looking up/looking down” dynamic.

And, the act of co-creating the relationship helps build trust.

It’s  not necessary to list and delineate every decision that could possibly come up. Usually, there are classes of decisions that can be treated in the same way.  I start by having the group brainstorm all the decisions they are likely to make as they work towards the team goal.  Then, they group the decisions to identify the classes.

Looking at the classes of decisions, I help the group answer these questions:

Who defines the problem or issue?

Who sets the focus and boundaries (e.g., money, timing, unacceptable options, criteria, etc.)

Who identifies candidate options?

Who evaluates chooses among options?

Who implements the chosen option?

Who evaluates the decision, once it’s in place?

At the end of the activity, they have a grid that looks something like this chart (though they usually have names, rather than M and T to stand for manager and team).

Clear decision boundaries makes it explicit which decisions are the managers alone, which are the managers, but involve the team. It also identifies which decisions are shared, and which the team can make even if the manager isn’t around to participate in a particular decision.

This sort of clarity make is easier for teams to act on their empowerment. It also avoids the sort of ill will that can come up when the team believes they will be involved in a decision, and the person with a management role believes differently.

I’ve been noticing what’s missing lately. In some ways, its harder to see what’s not there than what is. But there’s lost of useful information in what isn’t said, as well as what is.

For example:

A manager, talking about one of the people who reported to him said:

“He’s difficult to manage.”

What’s missing?

“He’s difficult (for me) to manage.”

“(When he does X), he’s difficult (for me) to manage.”

“(When he does X,) he’s difficult (for me) to manage (because I don’t understand his actions).”

“(When he does X), he’s difficult (for me) to manage (because I don’t understand his actions and I don’t know what to do).”

There may be another follow-on sentence, that hints at the crux of the matter.  That sentence might be…

And I’m worried that if I can’t bring him around, I’ll miss my goals and my boss will think I’m not competent.

And I have judgements about that behavior because I was criticized for that when I was in school.

And I feel threatened.

And I feel I have to defend my ideas.

I know what I’m asking doesn’t make sense, but my boss told me to do it.

It may have been more comfortable for the manager to say the first sentence, as he did.  He may even believe it.

As long as the manager deletes parts of the sentence, it’s easy for him to see the other person as the problem. As long as the problem resides entirely with the other person, there’s not much he can do to improve the situation (other than fire the “difficult to manage” person).  But the deletions contain important information that could help him improve the situation.

What examples would you add?

A while back I was contacted by a potential client who wanted to “go agile.”  But they wanted to do it in a deterministic manner.  They wanted a plan, complete with milestones and dates–mostly indicating that other people had changed their behavior as dictated by management.

Sigh.

One could make a plan for mass training (aka sheep dip), I suppose.  One could   dictate that by June 10, 20XX, all teams will practicing TDD.  Or that all projects will be converted to backlogs and loaded into agile project management software.

But that doesn’t seem so agile to me.  It seems like it misses the point of learning and adapting; of embracing values; of understanding systems and patterns, how the work works, what’s working and what’s not.  Without considering the WHY behind processes and learning as you go, you are only going through the motions.

Start with understanding the current state, and what problem you are trying to solve by “going agile.”  Understand how the current structures and goal alignments are supporting or hindering the goal of delivering products to customers, and identify targeted changes that will improve that ability. Identify where and you can change the pattern and establish structures that will help the new pattern take hold.

Make a Road Map, knowing that you don’t know everything and can’t foresee all you’ll discover on this journey of change. Describe the desired pattern and the steps that you can currently envision to get there.  You won’t be able to see all the steps. If your initial actions are effective, your culture will be changing. Any far-future actions you described from the driveway may no longer be what’s needed when you are 100 miles from home.

It’s impossible to know everything at the outset when you decide to make what amounts to a cultural change. You take some steps, observe the effects of actions, and adapt, learning as you go.

Deterministic planning fails with complex software systems, and it fails with organizational change. Organizations are far too complex, and we need to plan for adaptation, learning, and the fact that the organization will be changing as the plan unfolds.

I’ve seen a renewed cry for leaders in organizations lately. Too often in these discussions, the definition of “leadership” boils down to a role where one individual creates a vision for others to follow. That’s not enough. We need more leadership, not just more anointed or appointed leaders.

“Leadership” is most potent when it’s a verb, not a noun. Leadership is taking actions that will help a group create a product, achieve their charter, grow in capability, solve problems, or improve results.

Looked at this way, we can create organizations that are full of leadership, not just individuals in leadership roles. And, sometimes, the most potent leadership action is the quiet act of choosing to follow. I call that being an active follower. Here are three ways to be an active follower on your group or team.

Step Back and Let Someone Else Step Forward

When one person on the team is the most skilled, it’s easy for the rest of the group to over rely on that person. Overreliance on one person poses a risk. On the operational level, there’s the truck factor: If the most-skilled or sole skilled individual leaves the job for whatever reason (and we hope it’s not because he is hit by the proverbial truck), the team won’t be able to function. No one will be ready to step in. In cases of extreme overreliance, the rest of the group won’t be aware of all the work that person was doing. It might take weeks before someone else can identify and pick up the pieces.

There’s also a long-term risk to team health. When person takes the lead, others don’t have the opportunity to learn and develop their own capabilities. If there’s no place to grow, people will check out and leave—or, worse, check out and stay.

Break Gridlock by Deferring to Someone Else’s Idea

When too many people want to be “the leader,” the result often isn’t action but a complete lack of forward movement. If no one is willing to step back and declare “I don’t have to have my way; let’s try your way this time,” the result is gridlock. An active follower seeing gridlock will choose to follow someone else’s lead for the good of the team.

Take a Supporting Role

There’s a reason that the Oscars have an award for best supporting actor. Without the supporting actor, the work of the lead falls flat. Many jobs demand the work of two people, but it’s not equal in every case. An active follower is willing to take that supporting role and let someone else take the lead. You may not get the credit this time, but chances are that if you’re willing to support someone else today, she’ll be willing to take the supporting role another day.

Back up a team mate when he chooses a difficult-to-implement story–or one that’s at the edge of his technical skills. Pair program with him, but let him drive. Offer informal peer review, offer feedback, or coach.

Let a less-senior member of the team make an important presentation. Play a supporting role by offering feedback on a draft, listening to a practice run, and sharing tips and experience that will help the other person succeed.

When only one person leads, the rest of the team members are turned into passive followers. Unlike active followers, who make a choice to allow someone else to lead in a particular instance, passive followers always hang back. Passive followers fall into the habit of depending on others, whether it’s keeping track of time, coming up with ideas, or galvanizing the group into action. Passive followers wait for someone else to step up, not out of an intention to achieve results, but out of habit or a sense of disempowerment.

Over time, the de facto leader may resent being the only one who attends to time or urges action. When only one person comes up with ideas, the team is missing out on a rich mix of ideas to choose from and may be missing good options. Other team members don’t exercise their own creativity, and the team as a whole misses out on their talents. Some people prefer to let others take the lead and the credit (and also the blame). But, most people want at least a slice of the glory. When they’re always in the background, they don’t get that and eventually disengage. They may even undercut the star who won’t move off center stage so they can get their own moments of fame.

Productive teams count on leadership throughout the team and know that each can lead at different times. Likewise, they expect that, at some point, each will follow another’s lead all in the interests of the team and team results.

When you consider your team or group, which sort of followership do you observe? How is that serving your team? What are other ways to be an active follower? Post your comments.

(An earlier version of this article appeared on Stickyminds.com.)

Many managers ask me, “How can I motivate my team?”

I’ve certainly seen many efforts to motivate teams.  Contests, prizes, pep talks, badges, points, canned thank you notes, and recognition events. Most of this comes down to using rewards to motivate people to continue certain behavior.

Some of these work for some people, some of the time. But most of them backfire, for most people, most of the time.

Consider these attempts at motivating:

A team lead receives a substantial sum of money when the team meets a critical deadline. Despite pleas from the team lead, management will not divide the money equally between all team members.

A developer worked late into the evening to fix a critical bug.  His manager, wanting to motivate others to show similar dedication, gave the developer a ticket to the opening night of a big movie.  One ticket—another night away from his wife and kids.

A programmer discovered and fixed an error that was costing the company millions. He worked with an account rep to provide data that allowed the company to recover a substantial portion of the money from erroneous invoices.  The VP of the division gave the programmer a gift certificate for $100 at a local restaurant.

A manager singled out one person from a team for public recognition, and didn’t mention the contributions of any other team members.

A VP called a special meeting. When all the developers were assembled. He opened his brief case, which was full of cash.  Every programmer received $300 cash money.  When they got paid the next Friday, they found that the award was taxed, and taxed at a higher rate then their normal salary.  Actual pay was $100 less than than they usually received.

Each of these attempts at motivation backfired. Many people (but clearly not all) know that rewards and other extrinsic motivators aren’t effective; in fact, they often diminish intrinsic motivation.  And making one person the winner makes other people losers.

So why-oh-why do managers do such things?  Do the managers who came up with these ideas (and others like them) ever put themselves in the place of the person they were rewarding, and asked themselves how they would feel if someone treated them that way?

I suspect not.  But then, why wouldn’t they do so?

Some managers still assume that “workers” won’t work without carrots (or sticks). It doesn’t occur to them that carrots might not be the preferred diet.

Some managers don’t understand what motivates people doing technical work. Just look at the surveys that report what managers believe are the key motivators for developers, and what developers report motivates them.  Major mismatch.

Some  managers see themselves as different from “workers.”  For example, they often believe that money is the primary motivator for “workers,”  but they don’t ascribe such crass motive to themselves.  Just like they don’t need carrots and sticks, but “workers” do.

Some managers can’t imagine that “workers” wouldn’t welcome some sign of management favor and approval. This is about power and status, pure and simple.

The zeroth step in boosting motivation is to stop doing things that demotivate people.

A while back I was talking to a manager who complained that “no one” in his organization was “accountable.”  Of course, he exempted himself form that category.

This manager, (I’ll call him Tom) feels like he’s accountable— he knows that if they people creating software products don’t get their work done, he’ll hear from his boss, and it won’t be fun. So, Tom schedules meetings, hands out plans, talks about urgency and exhorts other people to do their work.

I asked Tom to draw me a picture of how the work was organized in his company.  It was quite a tangle.  The development groups (UI, DB, middleware, apps, test….) live in silos and report to different functional managers. The project managers sit is another organization, from where they coordinate project work across the development groups.  Each project manager manages four or five projects. The development folks are likewise forced to multitask, as they spread their time and attention across a similar number of problems (and have 4 or 5 project managers telling them what to do).

The senior managers change their minds about priority—at the project level—every few weeks.  Every one is busy, but not much gets done.  Given the picture Tom drew, I was not surprised  that Tom feels frustrated.

But Tom’s answer is that they need better people in the project manager and development roles—people who will be accountable.

Tom is not an anomaly.  Many managers I talk to believe other people have no innate sense of accountability (what ever that means) and that no one holds them accountable. In fact, most people—regardless of where they stand in the hierarchy—feel that they are held accountable; sometimes they believe that others are not.

How can this be?

Accountability, the way Tom  talks about it flows one way. There’s no sense of mutual accountability or partnership. The person telling the story is doing his job; others are not.  The manager tells other people what to do, and they are supposed to do it—no matter that the deadlines are madness, people are forced to multitask, the goal is hazy, the requirements shift by the minute, and the folks doing the work don’t have all the skills to do the work.

When people aren’t “accountable,” I wonder what gets in the way of accomplishing work and makes the appear to be “unaccountable.” I wonder if the managers see their job as creating an environment for people to accomplish work. Or whether they think their job is telling people what to do, and then blaming them (read: “holding them accountable”) when organizational obstacles get in the way.  And I think about the fundamental attribution error:  When “I” don’t finish work or complete assigned goals, it’s because external circumstances prevented me from doing so;  when you don’t finish work or complete assigned goals, it’s because of a character flaw—no sense of accountability, in this narrative.

When I look at Tom’s picture, it’s clear that the majority of the barriers are of management making.  Deadlines, multitasking, unclear goals , shifting requirements and priorities, hiring unskilled people or failing to adequately train people are all management issues.  But somehow that doesn’t come into the assessment of accountability.

When managers do their part and create work systems that makes it easier—not more difficult—to get work done, they usually find that suddenly they have people who are accountable.  Accountability is about negotiation and partnership; it is not a cudgel to blame people for not meeting unilateral demands.