Creating a Culture of Accountability
A regular challenge I hear from clients is ‘why do actions / priorities drift if I am not chasing them down?’ ‘who is taking ownership of this task?’
In his book Traction: get a grip on your business, Gino Wickman advises that most people lose focus on a priority after 90 days.
If this issue resonates with you and your business consider implementing The Outcome Key Results (OKR) or ROCK’s Approach.
Wickman recommends building a list of priorities with your team every 90 days. These priorities should be:
Outcome focussed, support moving the dial on the overall business objectives
Measurable at the end of 90 days
Realistic to be achieved within 90 days
Wickman suggests bringing your leadership team off site quarterly to provide the team with the opportunity to evaluate performance, refocus, set priorities for the next 90 days, and resolve any issues impeding progress.
Each quarterly meeting agenda includes the same seven basic steps to properly align the team. I have added some thoughts and insights from running these sessions with clients
1. WELCOME, CONTRACTING
15 minutes
Consider this the warm-up. To get the ball rolling, each person in the meeting shares the following:
Their best news (personal and professional) from the last 90 days - this exercise is a great starter as meeting performance is enhanced from positive mindset and building connection across your team.
What is and isn’t working within the organisation - this exercise allows time to share wins and concerns. Important to have a parking lot here to manage some left field or operational matters arising.
Expectations for the meeting.
This helps get everyone working on the business and identifies key issues that should be discussed later in the meeting. Stating clear expectations helps to set the stage for the day ahead.
2. REVIEW THE VISION/TRACTION ORGANIZER® (V/TO®)
60 minutes
Next, team review the annual plan to refresh their memory about the company vision and to ensure that everyone’s on the same page about the future. There is time here for the team to raise any concerns, questions, on the business direction and priorities. See previous article here on creating a VTO for your business.
3. PREVIOUS QUARTER REVIEW
30 minutes
Team members review annual objectives and targets at the company level ( 3 year and 1 year plan in VTO, see previous article on business planning). Then the team review the goals from the previous quarter, identifying how many were completed. If the team didn’t complete at least 80% of the ROCK’s in the previous quarter, discuss what worked and what didn’t. This allows you as a team to learn from past mistakes and improve.
Leaders may choose to carry an incomplete quarterly goal over to the next quarter if it’s still a priority to complete. If 80% of the goal / ROCK is complete then the last 20% of the goal can become an action item for the team’s weekly meeting.
4. ESTABLISH NEXT QUARTER’S OBJECTIVES, KEY RESULTS
120 minutes
List all items that must get done this quarter to ensure that the business achieves its one year objectives and goals included in the Vision Traction Organiser ( The Plan). It is completely normal at this stage to have
Too many priorities
Dependencies
Carryover goals/ ROCKs
In this 2 hour block it is vital to get to the critical 3 - 7 priorities which will ensure your business progresses towards its one year targets. This process needs discussion, challenge and ultimately agreement. Some of the team will need to let some things go, some priorities will need to be combined. Critical paths will need to be considered to address dependencies. Once you have agreed on the top 3 to 7 then the Rocks need to be assigned owners.
5. TACKLE KEY ISSUES
180 minutes
Using the Issues List from the weekly meeting and/or from the issues raised at the top of the agenda, the team removes all resolved issues by newly created Rocks and adds any new items as needed. It can be useful to use the following process to resolve issues
First prioritise the top three issues on your list to discuss.
The team then identifies an issue’s root cause, openly discusses possible solutions
Team defines action steps.
Completing these action steps will resolve the issue forever.
The team carries forward any issues that aren’t ready to be resolved yet.
6. NEXT STEPS
7 minutes
Everyone discusses the next steps, identifying owners of action items or to-dos and necessary communications to the full organisation based on the decisions made.
7. CONCLUDE
8 minutes
Finally, each team member shares three things to end the meeting, including:
Their overall feedback on the day.
Their feedback on whether their expectations were met or not.
A meeting rating – each team member rates the meeting from 1 to 10 on the level of effectiveness. (An effective meeting should have an average rating of at least 8.)
Once the quarterly OKR’s have been set, the team reviews their progress against the priorities weekly and requests help if priorities are slipping – this approach supports team cohesion.
I have used this methodology with a number of businesses and while it generally takes a few quarters to find its rhythm, it works to deliver results, clarify accountability, as well as identifying weak points across the team.
If you would like support to implement this type of planning framework to drive accountability in your business, please drop me a note at elaine@elaine-russell.ie