Richard Pierce Thomas

Leadership and Small Business Consultant

“We just need to be more accountable!” my client railed, bemoaning the continued mediocre results from his sales team.                

“Accountable for what?” I asked, bracing for his response. I knew I was poking the beehive.

“For what?” he sputtered. “How about for results, for starters!” 

His face was turning red and I knew I was pushing it. He held his stare for a long moment, and then fell into his chair behind the large oak desk, resigned. 

“How difficult can it be to just go out and do your job?” he asked, shaking his head.

It’s not like I didn’t know what he was talking about. He is not alone. Frustration with the lack of accountability on the sales team is a common refrain I hear from a number executives and business owners. So much so that I’ve devoted an entire segment of my executive leadership development seminar on the subject. 

The challenge with accountability is that it is not simply a button one pushes, but rather is an outcome of a combination of 1) the right person, with 2) the right company. As history has proven, the latter is more important than the former, which underscores Warren Buffett’s sage advice, “You can put a great manager in a bad company, and you still have a bad company. If you put a bad manager in a good company, however, you still have a good company.”

All of which points to that if accountability is a trait my client truly desires on his sales team, let alone the rest of the organization, then the fix is much more systemic than he is likely willing to hear. 

Oh sure, he can take the Band-Aid approach and use the proverbial stick and threaten performance, however he would ultimately reap the unintended consequences of an organization that opposes what is imposed, with the performers voting with their feet out the door to more conducive working environments at competitors, leaving him with the non-performers left on his payroll. Surprisingly, the opposite is proven to not work very well. 

As has been well documented in Daniel Pink’s Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Pink illustrates that incentives only work in sustaining performance over time when the task at hand is mechanical and repetitive, such as piece work sewing in a textile factory. When it comes to processes that involve a higher level of cognitive thinking, such as cold calling, relationship building and negotiation, incentives actually begin to fall short.

“What am I supposed to do then?” my client asked in frustration. I paused and thought carefully about how to explain what it will take for him to get there. I knew the answer was not what he wanted to hear. 

“You’ve got to start with the foundation of the business and work out from there,” I explained. And I’m not talking about what your business does, but I am talking about how it does it. Based on his nonplussed expression, my answer wasn’t hitting home so I illustrated the following:

1. A business is a representation of the ownership. If you are looking for accountability, you need to look first at your actions.

2. Values describe what we stand for.

3. What we say and do are behavioral anchors, which describes how we stay aligned with the values.

4. Culture is the product of the first three steps done well. A culture of accountability is an outcome. 

If you are frustrated with the lack of accountability in the company, you first need to understand what is creating it. It begins with understanding who we are and what we stand for, which are commonly known as the values of an organization. 

Next, we need to define what we say and do that; put action to the values. This is where culture comes from. When these foundational elements of the company are defined and ultimately aligned, we then use them to determine who we hire, how we evaluate performance, even what clients we choose to do business with.

If this describes your company, take the time to review your foundational elements. It is likely they contain the answer to unlocking the performance you desire.

 

Rick P. Thomas is President of Activate Leadership, a leadership development consultancy in Washington state. He consults and speaks to organizations across the country, focusing on individual and organizational achievement.