the accountability challenge

The Accountability

Challenge –

The Making or Breaking

of Caribbean

Corporations

By

Francis Wade

These materials may not be reproduced, publicly

displayed, or used to create derivate products in

any form without prior written permission from:

Framework Consulting Inc.

3389 Sheridan Street, #434

Hollywood, FL 33021

954-323-2552

www.fwconsulting.com

© 2005 Framework Consulting, Inc.

All rights reserved

High-Stake Interventions

The Accountability Challenge

©2005 Copyright Framework Consulting, Inc. 2

Caribbean managers have inherited a history that is unique. While the territories that are

English speaking have a common language, common sports, overlapping tastes in music

and shared institutions such as the University of the West Indies, the legacy that most

prevails upon the workplace is that of chattel slavery (and its cousin, indentured labour.)

This was the major force that brought the vast majority of the region’s ancestors to their

respective countries.

While the legacy of slavery can be seen to have multiple effects on today’s workplace,

Framework Consulting has been focused on understanding a single effect – the inability

of executives and managers to create workplaces of high accountability. From our work

with companies in Barbados, Trinidad and Jamaica we have observed that in spite of

some cultural differences, there are also some striking similarities.

What are these similarities? We have found that executives and managers are persistently

complaining that employees refuse to take responsibility. Also, managers do not know

what to do about the problem, or how to intervene in a way that will do anything more

than make the problem worse. Lastly, they stop looking for solutions, and therefore

stunt their own skill development, long before the supply of possible answers is depleted.

This paper addresses these similarities, and offers a partial solution.

A Lack of Accountability

The first key similarity that we have noticed is in the kinds of complaints that executives

and managers have about the people that are working for them at ALL levels in the

company. While most companies have people who are very well-trained (in the technical

skills needed for the job,) managers observe that at some point in an employee’s working

career they “learn” how to stop taking initiative. A young employee who is recently

hired very quickly resorts to a mode of doing “just what I was told to do” and retreats

behind that excuse at the first opportunity.

Employees resist being accountable, even when it

appears that being accountable is in their best

interest. They are quite comfortable in “delegating

upwards” – putting the burden of decision making,

accountability and risk, squarely on the shoulders

of the manager. This behavior is widespread, and

leaves the manager with the overwhelming sense

that important decisions must be made by them, and them alone.

The effect is debilitating. Decisions are made slowly. Simple customer complaints are

resolved only after a manager is involved. Even the smallest expenditure must be

… at some point in an

employee’s working career

they “learn” how to stop

taking initiative



approved, as only the manager can be trusted to handle purchases. Customers quickly

learn that they need to “know somebody” on the inside, as there is no way they would be

caught dead dealing with a front-line employee that they don’t know – unless they are

forced to.

Employees position themselves as “victims” and managers as “villains.” This positioning

prevents managers from doing the job of making the difference that they are really being

paid to make. Management becomes something (or someone) to resist, and leadership

turns into a role to deride.

This workplace habit probably has its genesis in

slavery, where this attitude was a useful one when

it came to a slave’s primary goal in life: staying

alive while doing as little as possible. Translated

into modern terms, it means: keep the job and the

paycheck as long as can,, but do as little as possible

to prevent being fired. A workplace survey in the U.S. showed that some 40% of

employee were “doing as little as possible to keep their jobs.” Our experience tells us

that in some Caribbean companies, that number may run as high as 60%.

Not Knowing How to Create Accountability

The second key similarity is related to the first. Managers do not know what to do about

the problem of lack of accountability.

The first option that managers consider is a version of what can be called “Getting on

Bad” with the employees they are attempting to transform. Force, combined with fear, is

used to get people moving into action. By “showing them that you mean business” and

“getting raw,” managers find that they are able to make things happen, at least for a

while. This is not as one-sided as it sounds. Expatriate managers to the Caribbean have

reported to us that they are quite surprised to discover that some employees seem to

welcome this approach … and will only respond to it.

That this is the first technique used is not a surprise, as it closely echoes the approach

used by slave masters during the 300 year history of slavery. Force was used in much the

same way to generate a fear of further punishment. One of the cruel practices of slavery

was to publicly flog a disobedient slave while forcing other slaves to watch, especially

the younger ones. This was a way to get people to do what you could not get them to do

by any other known method..

…some 40% of employees

were “doing as little as

possible to keep their jobs.”



At the same time, we’ve observed that some managers use milder variations of violent

and forceful action, including manipulation, bribery and cajoling. While these techniques

do not generally involve or engage the same level of fear, they also do damage to the

working environment.

At the other extreme, this history of violence is so very alive for some managers that they

resolve to do nothing rather than to risk a confrontation that may be seen as an attack.

They will do anything to avoid a conflict, and prefer to leave an employee in the dark,

and to have the organization’s results falter. This avoidance leads to a lack of

productivity, which too many good managers attempt to overcome by just putting in more

and more hours and effort. Others just keep poor performers in place, and work hard to

create ways to work around the person. The result is a sense of overwhelm on the part of

the manager.

These two options – violence, or withdrawal – seem to the manager to be the only ones

available, and while this does not stop the manager from complaining to his or her peers,

friends, family, it does not translate into effective action.

It is as if the manager becomes trapped in the role of a benevolent dictator, very much in

keeping with the preferred style of the slave masters of old.

A Lack of Skill Development

The third similarity comes from the manager believing that they are stuck in a bad

situation, with no good options. Either they become a tyrant, or they find a way to avoid

the situation indefinitely, or they fire the employee. They believe that they are powerless,

and a victim of their employee’s bad attitude.

Our observation, however, is that when compared with the best managers that we have

seen around the world, the average Caribbean manager is also relatively unskilled, and

not engaged in the ongoing development of their skills.

In other words, they have stopped looking for better and more successful techniques for

intervening in their employees’ performance. Most often, they do not have managers

with whom they work that have developed superior skills for creating successful

interventions. They have often not seen a clear and workable alternative to force or

withdrawal, and if they do happen to see effective skills in action, they chalk it up to the

manager’s personality, disposition or experience (none of which they can possess in short

order.)



Sometimes, even when a firm such as ours is

brought in to assist, as a group they start out

agreeing that the problem lies with the

employees, and the solution is available only to

the gifted few. They themselves have nothing to

do with the lack of accountability they

experience.

What they miss is that conducting successful confrontations is a matter of skill, much in

the same way that executing a square cut or dribbling a hockey ball with a curved hockey

stick are also skills. They cannot see that these skills can be learned, practiced, perfected

and taught to others – even by them.

They also miss out on a basic truth: accountability is not taught or created directly. It is

impossible to coach someone effectively by telling them to “be more accountable.”

Instead, our experience shows that companies that experience high accountability have

managers who are very skilled at conducting critical confrontations around performance.

Want more accountability? Look to see what confrontations are being avoided at all

levels, in every direction – downwards, upwards and between peers.

When managers do realize that a culture of accountability can be created, starting with

them learning new skills, then the real work of transforming the organization can actually

start. Managers can learn how to use the best

methods available to successfully conduct

confrontations that are necessary, but produce

positive results.

Here at Framework, our research has turned up

effective principles and methods that allow a

manager to directly observe his or her own

inability to confront. Through the use of video

taped feedback and customized cases, managers

receive group input from their peers and trained

facilitators on how well they do in producing a result in a fictions, but critical role-play.

They can compare, for the first time, their performance in these difficult conversations

against the ideal, as defined by state-of-the art techniques of listening, observing and

giving feedback. They can then try out alternative approaches, informed by the

principles they are learning, and receive coaching on how well the new approaches work.

In a safe environment that is experimental, the learning is rapid. Managers leave the

course armed with a new skill that they have just begun to practice, and are able to

What they miss is that

conducting successful

confrontations is a matter of

skill

… our experience shows that

companies that experience

high accountability have

managers who are very

skilled at conducting critical

confrontations around

performance.



confront any kind of behaviour they deem sub-par or unacceptable. With these new

skills, they have empowered themselves to create cultures of accountability within their

organizations. It represents a start in overcoming the influence of hundreds of years of

resistant work habits learned by Caribbean people to survive the horrors of slavery.

3389 Sheridan Street #434

Hollywood, FL 33021 954-323-2552

www.fwconsulting.com

the accountability challenge

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