Keeping Employees Accountable for Results

Quick Tips for Busy Managers

Brian Miller

• Publisher: AMACOM
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9780814473207
• eBook ISBN: 9780814429020
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

This useful resource gives time-pressed managers the proven, practical information they need to help their people accomplish more.

All managers want to hold their employees accountable for results, but few know how. Moving far beyond the typical annual performance review, Keeping Employees Accountable for Results provides simple ways to build teams by engaging participants in learning about themselves and their team players. 

The book gives busy managers quick, step-by-step advice on:

• Setting expectations
• Monitoring progress
• Giving feedback
• Following through

Light on theory and heavy on practical application, Keeping Employees Accountable for Results contains checklists, templates, techniques, and other tools to manage performance on an ongoing basis.

CHAPTER 1

Set Expectations

The success of any organization comes down to one thing: how well it organizes its members to focus on and work toward the same purpose. Assuming an organization knows what that thing is, and communicates it well, your staff members should be focused on doing their part in that effort. If your staff members don’t contribute to that aim, they’re probably not doing the right work!

Step 1. Determine what your organization wants to accomplish.

The Reasons

Everything done anywhere in the organization should link back to what it has declared is its most important work. So start at the top. Organizations use different methods to identify what’s most important—missions, visions, strategies, objectives, goals, and values are the most common. Each has a slightly different meaning and a slightly different emphasis that will help you get clear about the focus of your organization. Your organization’s focus doesn’t merely set the context for holding your employees accountable; it should drive it!

The Basics

1. Review all of your organization’s mission statements, vision statements, values, strategies, goals, and objectives.

2. Get a full and complete picture of where your organization is, why it is, and where it’s going, as well as how it intends to get there.

The Details

A mission statement is a brief statement of the organization’s reason for being. It is used to help keep an organization focused on what is (and what is not) its work. Here are some examples:

To extend and enhance human life by providing the highest-quality pharmaceutical and related health care products. (Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, a pharmaceutical company)

To help leaders become more confident and competent at the front line. (Working Solutions, a leadership consulting firm)

To improve the quality of life for our customers, team members, suppliers, shareholders, and communities where we have facilities through the effective operation of profitable, diversified, yet balanced businesses that extend worldwide. (Koch Enterprises, a diversified holding company)

Don’t confuse a mission statement with an organization’s tagline. The mission statement tells why the organization exists. The tagline will create interest in the organization.

The mission of TeamBaldwin CPAs is: To provide our clients with financial peace of mind while providing an enjoyable work environment for our team members.

The tagline for TeamBaldwin CPAs is: Making Business and Taxes Fun.

If your organization has no mission statement, you can approximate one quickly. Ask yourself, “Why do we exist as an organization? What is our purpose for being?” Don’t get confused by things like making a profit, dominating market share, or beating out the competition. Although important, these are rarely the true reasons an organization exists. They are more likely goals or strategies than mission statements. For the organization’s mission statement, seek to understand the core reason for its existence. You don’t need verbiage. Quite the contrary, you should be able to summarize your organization’s mission in fewer than 50 words.

In larger organizations, smaller parts of that organization may have their own mission statements that reflect what their contribution to the overall organization is. For example, the cafeteria at an automotive parts factory might have a mission statement something like:

To provide nutritious, affordable meals to factory workers in a clean and pleasant environment.

If your department or unit doesn’t have a mission statement, you can create one by asking similar questions to the ones on page 8. “Why do we exist as a work group? What is our department’s purpose for being? What do we contribute to our organization?” For instance:

Why do we exist as an organization?

As the Labor Relations Group, we help our internal clients steer clear of labor litigation.

What is our purpose?

To investigate discrimination complaints. To educate our management team about how to follow employment laws.

What else?

To make sure sexual harassment doesn’t happen in the workplace.

Given all this, the mission statement might be:

To help make our organization one that welcomes and values all workers of all kinds.

Vision, in contrast to mission, is a verbal picture of a desired future state for the organization. A vision statement is used to inspire employees to strive for an ideal. For example, the vision for Lincoln Electric, a manufacturer of welding equipment, is:

Lincoln Electric will be the undisputed world leader in the arc welding industry as measured by global sales volume, while simultaneously aiming to maximize shareholder value.

We will be the leader in supplying the finest-quality welding and cutting products. In order to accomplish this, we will continue our emphasis on being the industry’s lowest-cost producer, on providing applications expertise and solutions for our customers, and on developing new and innovative technology that responds to customer needs with value-added products and services.

If your organization (or department or unit) has no vision, ask yourself these questions: “What do we want this organization to look like in x years? In what ways do we want to be better than we are now? What do we want to have accomplished by then?”

What do we want this organization to look like five years from now?

An environment free of threats and intimidation

No sexual-harassment complaints or lawsuits

A place where men and women of any sexual orientation can work together without concern for personal safety or comfort

Longer than a mission statement, the vision is something of a narrative or series of bullet points. Vivid and alive, it should describe what the organization will be like in the future from a positive, affirming perspective. Given this, the vision for the Labor Relations Group might include statements like the following:

We support a harassment-free environment as evidenced by the lack of formal and informal complaints or lawsuits. We are seen as a model for integrating women into nontraditional jobs in our industry.

Values are principles or standards for conduct common across the organization. Whereas mission and vision statements describe where the company is and where it’s going, values describe how the company achieves these goals. The statement of values anchors employees’ behavior during the course of normal business, as well as in times of stress, change, or turmoil. Here is a list of values for Nationwide Insurance:

Performance Values

We have a bias for action and a passion for results.

We act accountably.

We value coaching and feedback.

We work as one team.

We have fun.

Core Values

We value people.

We are customer-focused.

We act with honesty and integrity.

We trust and respect each othe...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The Simple Approach to Accountability
• Chapter 1. Set Expectations
• Chapter 2. Invite Commitment
• Chapter 3. Measure Results
• Chapter 4. Provide Feedback
• Chapter 5. Link To Consequences
• Chapter 6. Evaluate Effectiveness
• Index
• About the Author