One thing I’ve noticed over the years is how quickly organisations rush to measurement.
Someone mentions accountability, and suddenly we’re talking about KPIs, OKRs, lead indicators, lag indicators, dashboards, scorecards and reporting frameworks.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a good process. The former Operations Director in me always will.
But I think a lot of teams accidentally start at the wrong end of the conversation, thinking they can fix their accountability issue with a tool or a process, when in fact it begins with understanding.
People don’t usually resist accountability. They resist accountability for things they don’t understand or don’t believe in.
Think about the best teams you’ve worked in. Were they accountable because they had a dashboard? Or were they accountable because they understood what they were trying to achieve together?
Most people don’t get out of bed in the morning excited about hitting KPI number 14 on a dashboard.
What they care about is making progress, doing good work, helping customers, growing a business, building something meaningful, solving problems, or contributing to a team they believe in.
The measures matter. But the measures aren’t the story.
One of the things I often look for when working with teams is whether there’s a clear connection between the work people do every day and the bigger picture.
Can people explain where the company is heading?
Do they understand what success looks like?
Can they see how their work contributes towards it?
Because there should be a golden thread that runs all the way from the company vision down to the work happening on someone’s desk today.
Vision → Strategy → Goals → Team priorities → Individual responsibilities.
If these connect, accountability gets a lot easier.
This is where I think many leaders get stuck. They assume the process itself will solve the problem. The response is often to introduce more KPIs, extra reporting, another dashboard, a different project management tool, or a shiny new accountability framework that promises to solve the problem.
And sometimes those things help.
But the process is only as good as the information people are feeding into it.
If people don’t understand the purpose behind what they’re being measured on, if they don’t believe in it, or if they can’t see how it connects to something meaningful, then no amount of reporting is going to magically create accountability.
You might get compliance, but you won’t necessarily get more commitment.
When people understand where the business is going and can see how their own work contributes to getting there, thing go in easier.
The conversations become less about chasing updates and reminding people what they should be doing, and more about how you solve problems, remove obstacles, and keep moving forward together.
In my experience, people are much more likely to take ownership when they understand the purpose behind the work. They can see the impact they’re having, they understand why it matters, and they feel part of something bigger than the task sitting in front of them.
That’s usually when accountability starts to feel less like something you’re enforcing through the use of measurement tools, and more like something that’s happening naturally within the team.
So if you’re thinking about accountability in your team, my advice would be not to rush straight to the measurement part (still important, and more on that in next week’s post, so be sure to sign up if you haven’t already).
Start with the story. Start with helping people understand where the business is going and why their work matters.
And next week, I’ll cover the measurement side itself, including tools I’ve found worked the best, and some of the common mistakes I see managers make when trying to hold people accountable.
If you’d like to read that when it comes out, make sure you’re subscribed.
If helping people understand the bigger picture, align around priorities, and build stronger accountability is something your leadership team is struggling with, it’s exactly the kind of work I help organisations with through leadership workshops.
As always, thanks for reading.
Louise
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