Accountability Builds Habits

From nearly the beginning of this look at how values serve as a foundation for any organization, I’ve stressed the critical role habits play in everything we do. I introduced the idea of helping our team members connect their behavior to core company values by sharing that it would require a slight change in our approach, and how that would help them repeat the actions necessary long enough to establish habits. I hit on it heavily again when we looked at how building strong habits gives us the bandwidth to make changes on the fly as we deal with unexpected issues, even when the initial process isn’t all that exciting on any given day. Before we wrap up this look at how sustaining high expectations around our values truly does allow our organizations to create a lasting legacy, let’s make sure we have simple steps in place to ensure we’ve developed the kind of accountability that can indeed establish the right habits.

I’ll stress once more, holding our teams accountable is far more about coaching them toward the desired behavior than condemning them for stepping out of line ever so slightly. When we take advantage of every opportunity to shine a positive light on the behaviors we observe that model exactly what we’re hoping for from our team members, any time we need to address a behavior that doesn’t align with a core value is much more natural. In either case, though, we’ve got to be incredibly specific about how their behavior does or does not connect with the value in question. If we’re only talking with them about our values when something goes wrong, they’re unlikely to have a clear picture of what the desired behavior looks like and we’ll be doing more to reinforce the undesired action as what actually happens moving forward; remember, recognized behavior gets repeated… When we’re intentional about recognizing the routine ways our team members’ behavior models our core values, even when that’s through a quick and simple pat on their back in a one-on-one interaction, we’re providing them with feedback that establishes accountability and helps build that ever-so-important habits that make our highest expectations sustainable.

Just to prove that I do still live in reality, let’s address the remaining elephant in the room: What about the times where someone just won’t align with our values? Make no mistake, I’ve seen a positive coaching approach produce far better results than a strictly punitive approach. But there will still be times where we’ll need to insert formal disciplinary action into the equation to have any hope of holding our teams accountable. A harsh reality of dealing with people is that there are occasions where someone will feel compelled to test any boundary we’ve worked to establish. When their actions go against our core values, we have no choice but to act on the decisions they’ve made. In most cases, we’ll still address whatever they’ve done through an initial conversation. But if they choose to use the same unacceptable behaviors afterward, they’re effectively demanding that we walk them through our formal progressive disciplinary process - up to and including termination. Please understand me, this is never something I’ve enjoyed doing. Truth be told, the only way I was able to get comfortable with having these conversations was by realizing that it was truly their choice, not mine.

While it’s not a step any leader ever looks forward to, it’s a crucial part of building and maintaining accountability; with the individual who has stepped out of line and for every team member who has worked to meet or exceed what we expect in modeling our values. In cases where a team member refuses to align with our core values, they’re effectively telling us that they no longer want to be part of our organization. While it’s certainly difficult for us to address at that moment, we need to be accountable to everyone else on our teams as we uphold those core values. When we’ve established the simple practices for exemplifying our core values and we’ve consistently explained and recognized behaviors that align with them, we’re well on our way to helping establish habits throughout our teams that sustain our high expectations. Over time, that’s exactly what will produce the results we’re working toward - so we’ll pick up there soon.