Working with our clients to build systems to make their companies more efficient and profitable, we take existing and sometimes broken systems and mold them into what works best for that particular company. What we find however, is that once the changes have been decided upon, the most difficult part for the business owner or manager of that unit is keeping their people accountable to the changes.
There are a myriad of reasons that managers don’t hold their staff accountable. Sometimes they don’t know how, they aren’t around enough, they haven’t delegated enough responsibility to their staff, or they have the wrong people on their team.
No matter what the reasons are, managers need to realize that process improvement requires building in accountability for the staff and then making sure that they are building in a process to track it. You’ve heard the saying, “you can’t improve what you don’t measure.” Managers and employees alike need to know what’s expected of each of them and perform accordingly. They also need to know that someone will be measuring their progress. As a leader, you need to ensure this is taking place.
Planning ahead and preparing for accountability issues at the beginning of your process improvement initiative is crucial. Discuss it with your team and give it a permanent seat at the table.
