Work Blog: The Basics of Accountability, Part 4: End with Intention
This was the fourth and final of Basics of Accountability, which went up on March 31, 2022. Upon re-reading it, I'm kind of disappointed. I don't feel the series pops as much as it should have. I could have done better. Oh well, that's life.
This post actually didn't change all that much when it came to this journal. I cut the graphic again, removed the link to HR materials and a link to a blog post from a colleague on building habits that was linked in the last paragraph. I also redacted a bunch of names that I had thanked. I also redacted the name of an internal awards system we use currently. aside from that, though, it's pretty much the same.
Well, not quite the same. LiveJournal doesn't have nearly the range of out of the box options for layout, and I just don't feel like figuring it out. It was much prettier in the original platform.
So far in this series, we have discussed these Basics of Accountability.
- Who is Responsible?
- What Are They Responsible For?
- What Kind of Follow Up Do You Need to Do?
Along the way, we have talked about the need to have a bias toward action. We've also touched on the HR definition of someone who is good at Ensures Accountability, who will Follow through on commitments and make sure others do the same, which includes:
- Act with a clear sense of ownership
- Take personal responsibility for decisions, actions, and failures
- Establish clear responsibilities and processes for monitoring work and measuring results
- Design feedback loops into work
All that's left is to End With Intention, which appropriately enough is the fourth and final of the Basics of Accountability.
But didn't we just talk about the kind of follow up that we need to do? How is Ending with Intention different?
The Value of Acknowledgement
Whenever you follow up with someone, you are asking for an update on whatever action item is being discussed. Maybe the work isn't complete, maybe it is, but you're trying to find out what's going on with it. When you End With Intention, the action item is completed.
What you're doing now is appropriately acknowledging the work the person did to complete it. If you want to consistently hold people accountable to getting things done, it's not enough to just make sure they are getting the work done. Oh, that approach works fine for a one-off occasion or even for a few months, but over the long run it wears on your relationship. If all you do is follow up to see how the work is going, eventually all but the most patient people will start seeing you as a source of stress, and they'll be less inclined to step up and cooperate with you. If you want to successfully hold people accountable in the long term, you need to consistently thank them for their efforts and provide appropriate acknowledgement.
What does appropriate acknowledgement look like? Well, it depends. It can vary by:
- Experience - Interns and new employees who aren't confident in their abilities yet often need more acknowledgement than very experienced people.
- Preference - Some people love getting frequent acknowledgement. Others would rather you didn't talk about it at all, or at least not in front of their peers.
- Size of the Item - The bigger a piece of work was, the more likely it is that it needs acknowledgment. The trivial change they finished yesterday may not need any acknowledgement, but the enormous project that took six solid months and required interactions with twenty-four other teams certainly does.
- Visibility - For some items, you can give someone kudos in a personal conversation or communication. For other items, it may be appropriate to acknowledge them in front of their manager, their team, their VP, the entire department or even the entire company. This could be anything from REDACTED REFERENCE TO INTERNAL SYSTEM to a personal email (with their manager cc'd) to a call out in the team meeting or any of a few dozen other ways.
The final completion of the work is a great time to provide acknowledgement, but you don't have to wait it's all done to do so. Most sizable items have milestones or other occasions when it is appropriate to acknowledge the work they've done so far. You also don't have to be someone's direct manager to acknowledge their work. Whether you're working with a peer on your own team or someone in another team, program or department, acknowledging the work that they have done is always worth the effort.
More Than Thanks
Acknowledgement isn't just for the person who did the work!
- If you're ensuring accountability for a direct report, any time you end with intention consider whether this work should inform a future professional development discussion.
- If you ensuring accountability for someone who is not a direct report, this may be an opportunity to make sure the person's manager is aware of the good work they have done. Every manager loves to hear things like that about their team members, especially when it's from someone on another team. Shoot them a quick email to let them know!
- If the work in question was part of a larger effort that you are reporting upwards to folks higher on the org chart, this may be an opportunity to highlight this person's work to that audience as well.
Acknowledgement is an also an opportunity for you to give feedback. A lot of people normally think of feedback as constructive criticism. That kind of feedback certainly has its place, but consider that some studies have indicated that you should be giving appreciation 5 times more often than critical feedback. If somebody did a great job, tell them exactly how they did a great job. These are all examples of positive feedback:
- I appreciate how you took the initiative to do that work outside your normal role.
- Thank you for alerting the team to the unexpected challenge you discovered.
- Your code review on that work helped our newest team member get up to speed quickly.
Other studies have found that if you say five positive things to someone combined with one piece of constructive criticism, they will understandably focus on the criticism and pay much less attention to all those positive items. Make sure that you give some positive feedback separately from any constructive criticism so they hear the positives!
Thank You For Reading
We have reached the end of this series on Ensures Accountability, so it is time to End With Intention. Many thanks to the many people who reviewed this series. It's a long list:
- The five members of the 2021 Ensures Accountability Mentoring Circle.
- My intrepid volunteer reviewers: FOUR NAMES REDACTED
- And of course, my team, with special thanks to NAME REDACTED
Like so many other things, getting good at holding others accountable is a skill you can build. Getting better at Ensures Accountability definitely requires you to build new habits, but it's tremendously useful for anyone who wants to be in any kind of leadership role, whether that is a direct leadership role in management or an indirect role as a technical leader.
This post actually didn't change all that much when it came to this journal. I cut the graphic again, removed the link to HR materials and a link to a blog post from a colleague on building habits that was linked in the last paragraph. I also redacted a bunch of names that I had thanked. I also redacted the name of an internal awards system we use currently. aside from that, though, it's pretty much the same.
Well, not quite the same. LiveJournal doesn't have nearly the range of out of the box options for layout, and I just don't feel like figuring it out. It was much prettier in the original platform.
So far in this series, we have discussed these Basics of Accountability.
- Who is Responsible?
- What Are They Responsible For?
- What Kind of Follow Up Do You Need to Do?
Along the way, we have talked about the need to have a bias toward action. We've also touched on the HR definition of someone who is good at Ensures Accountability, who will Follow through on commitments and make sure others do the same, which includes:
- Act with a clear sense of ownership
- Take personal responsibility for decisions, actions, and failures
- Establish clear responsibilities and processes for monitoring work and measuring results
- Design feedback loops into work
All that's left is to End With Intention, which appropriately enough is the fourth and final of the Basics of Accountability.
But didn't we just talk about the kind of follow up that we need to do? How is Ending with Intention different?
The Value of Acknowledgement
Whenever you follow up with someone, you are asking for an update on whatever action item is being discussed. Maybe the work isn't complete, maybe it is, but you're trying to find out what's going on with it. When you End With Intention, the action item is completed.
What you're doing now is appropriately acknowledging the work the person did to complete it. If you want to consistently hold people accountable to getting things done, it's not enough to just make sure they are getting the work done. Oh, that approach works fine for a one-off occasion or even for a few months, but over the long run it wears on your relationship. If all you do is follow up to see how the work is going, eventually all but the most patient people will start seeing you as a source of stress, and they'll be less inclined to step up and cooperate with you. If you want to successfully hold people accountable in the long term, you need to consistently thank them for their efforts and provide appropriate acknowledgement.
What does appropriate acknowledgement look like? Well, it depends. It can vary by:
- Experience - Interns and new employees who aren't confident in their abilities yet often need more acknowledgement than very experienced people.
- Preference - Some people love getting frequent acknowledgement. Others would rather you didn't talk about it at all, or at least not in front of their peers.
- Size of the Item - The bigger a piece of work was, the more likely it is that it needs acknowledgment. The trivial change they finished yesterday may not need any acknowledgement, but the enormous project that took six solid months and required interactions with twenty-four other teams certainly does.
- Visibility - For some items, you can give someone kudos in a personal conversation or communication. For other items, it may be appropriate to acknowledge them in front of their manager, their team, their VP, the entire department or even the entire company. This could be anything from REDACTED REFERENCE TO INTERNAL SYSTEM to a personal email (with their manager cc'd) to a call out in the team meeting or any of a few dozen other ways.
The final completion of the work is a great time to provide acknowledgement, but you don't have to wait it's all done to do so. Most sizable items have milestones or other occasions when it is appropriate to acknowledge the work they've done so far. You also don't have to be someone's direct manager to acknowledge their work. Whether you're working with a peer on your own team or someone in another team, program or department, acknowledging the work that they have done is always worth the effort.
More Than Thanks
Acknowledgement isn't just for the person who did the work!
- If you're ensuring accountability for a direct report, any time you end with intention consider whether this work should inform a future professional development discussion.
- If you ensuring accountability for someone who is not a direct report, this may be an opportunity to make sure the person's manager is aware of the good work they have done. Every manager loves to hear things like that about their team members, especially when it's from someone on another team. Shoot them a quick email to let them know!
- If the work in question was part of a larger effort that you are reporting upwards to folks higher on the org chart, this may be an opportunity to highlight this person's work to that audience as well.
Acknowledgement is an also an opportunity for you to give feedback. A lot of people normally think of feedback as constructive criticism. That kind of feedback certainly has its place, but consider that some studies have indicated that you should be giving appreciation 5 times more often than critical feedback. If somebody did a great job, tell them exactly how they did a great job. These are all examples of positive feedback:
- I appreciate how you took the initiative to do that work outside your normal role.
- Thank you for alerting the team to the unexpected challenge you discovered.
- Your code review on that work helped our newest team member get up to speed quickly.
Other studies have found that if you say five positive things to someone combined with one piece of constructive criticism, they will understandably focus on the criticism and pay much less attention to all those positive items. Make sure that you give some positive feedback separately from any constructive criticism so they hear the positives!
Thank You For Reading
We have reached the end of this series on Ensures Accountability, so it is time to End With Intention. Many thanks to the many people who reviewed this series. It's a long list:
- The five members of the 2021 Ensures Accountability Mentoring Circle.
- My intrepid volunteer reviewers: FOUR NAMES REDACTED
- And of course, my team, with special thanks to NAME REDACTED
Like so many other things, getting good at holding others accountable is a skill you can build. Getting better at Ensures Accountability definitely requires you to build new habits, but it's tremendously useful for anyone who wants to be in any kind of leadership role, whether that is a direct leadership role in management or an indirect role as a technical leader.