Holding The Boss Accountable
Posted by Laura Sheffield on Tue, Jan 19, 2010 @ 01:16 PM
In 1921, Charles Ponzi took the American people on a fraudulent wild ride of scheming and dealing. He made polluted money in a frenzy of illegal shenanigans. Who held Charles Ponzi accountable? Until the U.S. court system stepped in, no one did.
While most cases of deficient accountability aren't nearly as severe as the case of Charles Ponzi, there are potential Charles Ponzi's in every industry and in any-sized organization. Consider the latest round of Ponzi schemes. Action accountability for everyone is a priority. Is accountability built into your boss' job? Is it built into your job?
One of the main purposes of a 360 feedback process is to create accountability for the way leaders lead. The feedback received from a 360 assessment should act as a catalyst for a leader's personal improvement. Without accountability, a 360 survey is not a catalyst, it is simply ineffective.
An effective 360 degree feedback assessment requires structuring personal responsibility for improvement into the process. Such is accomplished by keeping personal feedback confidential, sharing development plans, and repeating the process regularly.
To achieve accountability, a 360 survey participant needs to be promised a level of confidentiality. Some people in the organization may need to know information about the individual's feedback in order to make it more useful, but increased privacy facilitates trust and personal responsibility. The best way to get the most accountability of the report, while giving participants an assurance of confidentiality, is to share the initial results with the participant and a designated coach while sharing the developed action plan (inspired by the results) with others. Some participants may voluntarily share more information from their initial report with others, and that's the ideal situation.
After an action plan is presented, those who are aware of the plan will then help the participant implement and follow up. In cases where those involved have an already-strained relationship, or are not development oriented, the role of a third-party coach is critical.
Repetition is the final key to building accountability into a 360 degree feedback survey, and into the job. If you only plan on doing 360s once, you run the risk of fostering apathy and lack of concern about the process. Participants will see this as a temporary program that can be ignored once the initial stages are complete. By communicating that 360s will be done each year, participants get the message that this is important to their success.
Imagine if Charles Ponzi had been held accountable with development action plans and effective follow-up. At the very least, it would have saved the American population tax dollars spent on court cases and prison time. Not to mention, Charles Ponzi may have had thriving business ventures, long term success, and he would not have died poor, blind, alone, and half paralyzed as he did in 1949.