PIHRA Scope - January/February 2008 - (Page 12) Stop Curling Up Like a Porcupine! Accountable! “I don’t know anything about that.” “That’s not my job.” “Sorry…I can’t help you. That’s the marketing department’s problem.” Lacking accountability can include seemingly small and trivial things, such as being late for meetings or not returning phone calls in a timely manner, or it can encompass gross errors in judgment, such as not telling the customer service department about a new product launch or ignoring budgetary restraints and spending wildly. But whether the oversight is small or large, the lack of accountability quickly sends a message to others—namely that you don’t care and can’t be counted on. Eventually the attitude spreads to others, and before long customers, vendors, and other outsiders also perceive the company’s lack of accountability. In some respects, people who lack accountability are a lot like the porcupine—those prickly creatures that live in the wild. The porcupine defends itself by curling up in a ball and protects itself with 30,000 outwardly pointed quills. Predators cannot penetrate this defense mechanism. This typifies many employees’ attitudes and actions. So when people are not accountable, they symbolically curl up like a porcupine, leaving lots of quills on the floors of halls and meeting rooms. While many people associate a lack of accountability with large bureaucratic agencies, the fact is that companies of all sizes suffer from this malaise. Fortunately, you can take steps to bring accountability back to your organization and end the blame game once and for all. The following guidelines will help. Become By Roger Hall FEATURE are just a few of the phrases that reign in organizations that lack accountability. Call it “the blame game,” “skirting responsibility,” or even “CYA.” But whatever you call it, the results are the same: Since no one wants to be accountable, the company isn’t sharp and doesn’t respond quickly enough to market shifts or customer demands. As a result, opportunities are missed, and profits gradually decline. 12 PIHRAScope January/February 2008 These
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.