1.5 - About University

13.3A CCOUNTABILITY A GREEMENTS: DEFININGA CCOUNTABILITY WITHIN O RGANIZATIONSInspired by Bruce Klatt, Shaun Murphy, David Irvine, and Paula Martin.The Accountability Agreement helps leaders transform often unspoken and misunderstoodjobs, roles, and employment contracts into explicit expectations, personal promises, and businessresults. It also defines a fair exchange of results and rewards among employers andemployees. To be accountable is to be subject to giving an account, answer, or explanation tosomeone, even if only to yourself. Simple as it may sound, the concept of accountability is achallenge to apply in today’s fast-paced organizations. This tool will help you do that.T HE KEY PRINCIPLES OF ACCOUNTABILITYSix principles provide a foundation for accountability within organizations. Each is essential,and together they form the practical theory that underlies an Accountability Agreement.✔ Accountability is a statement of personal promise.✔ To be accountable means you are answerable for results, not just activities.✔ To be accountable for results, you must have the opportunity for judgment and decisionmaking.✔ Your accountability is yours alone, without qualification. It is neither shared nor conditional.✔✔Accountability is meaningless without significant consequences.Finally and very importantly, every member of the organization is accountable for theorganization as a whole.T HE ACCOUNTABILITY AGREEMENTEstablishing Accountability Agreements involves sitting down with those to whom you areaccountable (e.g., employees, supervisors, clients) and negotiating a simple, practical, one- totwo-page agreement consisting of seven elements.➊ Business focusstatement➋ Accountabilities➌ Supportstatement➍ Measures✔ Start by writing your highest-level accountability and clarifying your business-within-thebusiness.This statement answers questions such as, “What products and services do youprovide to customers?” and “What is your unique contribution within the organization?”[☛ 3.1 Strategy]✔ Include a dozen or more specific statements of results (not activities!) that you are promisingto achieve within your organizational role. It is helpful to separate these into operational andleadership accountabilities.✔ Describe the resources and support that you require from others (e.g., your boss, your peers,employees who report to you) in order to fulfill your accountabilities. In this way, the notionof accountability becomes distributed; it flows downward and sideways, as well as upward, inorganizations.✔ List ways that you will measure success as to each of your accountabilities. This list thenserves as a reference while setting operational and leadership goals. [☛ 2.7 Goal Statements]SECTION 13 TOOLS FOR LEADING PERFORMANCE 399