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Home » The Accountability Key » 2J. The Achieving Outcomes Subprocess
- 2J1. The purposes of the Achieving Outcomes Subprocess include:
- 2J1i. Ensure accountability is proactive rather than reactive.
- 2J1ia. Proactive accountability is driven by a front-end process to clarify and negotiate the accountability commitment.
- 2J1ii. Take authority out of the picture.
- 2J1iia. The person requesting an outcome does not need to have authority to make the request.
- 2J1iii. Drive negotiation and then commitment before the work is started.
- 2J1iv. Know if accountability has been achieved or not.
- 2J1iva. Accountability evaluation is driven by a back-end process to evaluate the fulfillment of accountability based on the commitment made, not on the reasons something did or didn’t happen. Therefore, if the commitment was met, accountability was fulfilled. If the commitment was not met, accountability was not fulfilled.
- 2J1ivb. Therefore, accountability must be clearly defined up front so that results can be assessed versus the upfront commitment.
- 2J1v. Create learning in the organization.
- 2J1va. Lessons Learned is a stage in the back-end process to ensure individuals and teams take the time to focus on what went wrong and how to create a better process for the future, as opposed to VM 1.0 or MM1 1.0 which focus on who went wrong.
- 2J1vb. Lessons Learned focuses everyone on continuous improvement.
- 2J2. Rules of the Achieving Outcomes Subprocess for both individual and team accountability:
- 2J2J. Rule #1: Once accountability is accepted, it is unconditional.
- 2J2Ja. See Section 2O for more on unconditional accountability.
- 2J2Ji. Rule #2: Both team and individual accountability should be defined before any action is taken.
- 2J2Jii. Rule #3: Accountability can be negotiated between:
- 2J2Jiia. The members of the team or between the team leader and the team members.
- 2J2Jiib. Internal customers and internal suppliers. (Accountability is not negotiated with those outside the organization.)
- 2J2Jiic. Coaches and direct reports.
- 2J2Jv. Rule #4: The only leader that can assign accountability is the coach and only to a direct report.
- 2J2Jva. This is an exception to Rule #3 above and only occurs in order to meet organizational accountability.
- 2J2Jvb. See Section 2S for more on assignment of accountability.
- 2J2v. Rule #5: The team leader must negotiate outcomes that the team can produce.
- 2J2va. The team leader needs to confer with the team before making commitments for the team.
- 2J2vb. Even if the team leader has negotiated for the team, individual team members are not required to accept team accountability for the outcomes negotiated; they can opt to withdraw from the team.