Accountability

Accountability / responsibility / discipline

Today we are talking about accountability (and the related concepts of responsibility and discipline).

Webster’s Dictionary (online) defines Accountability thusly: “the quality or state of being accountable; especially: an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility”

In everything we need to be accountable. 

Story:  In the 1980’s and 1990’s Gateway Computers were a major PC computer company.  The company was located in North Sioux City South Dakota.  It was a pretty ideal situation – South Dakota had fairly low taxes, generous subsidies to get businesses to start in the state, solid workers, cheap land and fairly cheap labor.  They shipped their computers in boxes that looked like the side of Holstein cows – with large black and white areas.

There was great success – the brand was unique enough; the cost to build was just low enough to have a reasonable profit. Ted Waitt and Mike Hammond were co-founders. 

While it is hard to remain competitive – and to anticipate where the market was going, Gateway was the first major sub-$1000 PC’s and had a good market share.  In a move that might be considered a bad choice, they moved their headquarters from North Sioux City to La Jolla California (nice suburb of San Diego) in 1998.  Gone was the concept of working from a low cost environment to an expensive environment.  San Diego is one of the ideal weather cities in the world – with moderate temperatures; as compared to a South Dakota location. 

The author suggests that moving from South Dakota to La Jolla might be a case where the owners lost vision and opted for their own comforts rather than following what had worked for them so well.  The question might be:  Was Gateway accountable to its customers, and investors.  Within 6 years of that move, Gateway was shutting down stores, cutting back on production and eventually was bought out by Acer in 2007. 

Who are you – as a person – accountable to?  How about your business – who is it accountable to?  Is there a board of directors that expects accountability – or can the managers / CEO make decisions without input or review by others?

How about self-accountability?   Can we look ourselves in the mirror at the end of the day and say “I put in a day’s worth of work today.  I accomplished my tasks and achieved all that was expected of me – and MORE”.  Or … at the end of the day, do we want to point fingers and assess blame?  “I would have gotten more done if <name> had done his work.”.  “I just wasn’t feeling up to getting my work done today” ; “I wasn’t motivated to get my work done”.

There have been times in my life when I wasn’t being accountable to others and to myself.  I was wasting time; I was thinking and doing things that maybe were not in my best interest and the best for society.  Those hours spent playing “Words with Friends” and doing computer games are gone.  Those hours with mindless television are also gone.

Accountability should also involve others.  If you are employed, you should have (at least) annual reviews – where your boss, board of directors, customers and other stakeholders give you feedback.  Even when I was a tenured professor, I always had my students do evaluations and urged them to include comments so I could improve classes.  Many times the comments first hurt a little (“You should go slower when introducing new topics” – or – “You went too slow at times and were boring”) – but I took the comments to heart and made the next time through the course better. 

As a professor, I had an annual review with my boss (either dean or department chair), I needed to review my previous year’s goals and how well I had achieved them and set out my goals for the upcoming year. Was I going to have higher student evaluations, was I going to have more publications, was I going to pursue publishing in higher-level journals, was I going to do more service.

Likewise at home, I need to be accountable to my spouse (in my case, my wife).  

Did I spend my income on ‘wine, women and song’?  Am I giving her the attention and love she deserves?

Accountability might include a mentor or personal advisor.  Meet for coffee periodically.  I meet with former students – either electronically or in person (when I can) to ask how they are doing, where they are going, what their goals are, how they are going to reach their goals.  I’d like to think it is non-judgmental on my part – but causing them to reflect on their own goals and lives.

Corporations frequently seek feedback (which is a form of accountability).  Every time you go through McDonalds, the receipt asks the customer to give feedback (and get a coupon for a buy-one-get-one for a sandwich).  Many department stores ask for feedback.  Yelp and Tripadvisors ask you to evaluate restaurants and hotels.   I have had hotels reply to my comments and thank me for my evaluation and opinion!!!

Even in academic settings, students are accountable to their professors to do the work.  Excellence work that is over-and-above what is expected earns an “A”. 

Assignment: 

Who are you accountable to?  Do you have regular reporting to them?  Does your reporting match up against your goals and accomplishments?

If you haven’t done this, sit down and create a specific plan for the next week, next month and next year.  What specifics will you complete?  How should you be evaluated?