One-Sided Accountability

The organization chart formalizes the chain of accountabilities people expect in an organization large enough to require hierarchy. The first-order accountability is to hold people with functional and jurisdictional decision-making authority, known as bosses, accountable for getting beneficial results from the individuals and units who report to them. The second order is to hold individuals with specific responsibilities and assignments, known as subordinates, accountable for high-quality functioning and contribution. In both instances the chart should provide a straightforward representation of responsibilities and authorities, with the goal to identify productive and unproductive units and contributors. There's also a third-order accountability; it places adjacent, independently functioning units and jurisdictions on notice that their work orientations and accomplishments are expected to complement and integrate. The intent is to ensure that each unit stand accountable for the fact that how it performs—orientations taken, methods used, and outcomes sought—bears on the ability of other units, also critical to overall organization success, to perform effectively. Delegating responsibility to people with expertise, providing them with sufficient resources to fulfill that responsibility and the authority to orchestrate those resources synergistically, and then holding them accountable for end results is the key to getting hierarchy to work. Conversely, diffused authority on the chart leads to confusion about who has which responsibility and what authority and, ultimately, to no one standing accountable for responsibilities that aren't effectively carried out. The three orders of accountability are summarized in Table 7-1.

But having an organization chart doesn't ensure that people will “correctly” see and/or respect other people's authorities, or that functional and jurisdictional bosses will actively consider other people's endeavors and conduct themselves with an eye toward integrating with and complementing adjacent efforts. When disagreements in perception and motive lead to a competitive moment, which is almost always, people fear they will be held accountable for operations they lack the authority to control. At this point many assert themselves. They explain, lobby, and use whatever power-taking tactics are available in an attempt to take control of resources and jurisdictions they see as critical for delivering on commitments they've made. However, when people doubt their ability to sequester needed resources, they begin distancing themselves from accountability. They accumulate data and logic aimed at showing how other peoples' actions and external factors prevented them from producing the results they've pledged.

Experience has taught us that functional responsibilities split among groups in different reporting chains, and/or lack of clarity and agreement about who has decision-making authority, almost always lead to accountability disputes. Conversely, when responsibility is fixed within a single reporting chain and it's clear that those with responsibility have the authority to make decisions bearing on the execution of that responsibility, there should be little question about who's accountable for a result. One merely consults the organization chart, sees who has authority to make decisions in the domain producing the disappointing result, and who was supposed to provide oversight. If, in fact, organizations operated this way, then it would be the bosses, not just the subordinates, who received the boot when things didn't work out. But as everyone who has witnessed an organizational activity go sour knows, this is not how one-sided accountability works. Practicing one-sided accountability allows bosses to survive and even prosper while the people they hired—whom they judged sufficiently capable to receive delegated responsibility and whom the chart says they are supposed to direct, oversee, guide, and coach—receive negative evaluations leading to their dismissals.

Thus one-sided accountability is the source of the system's corruption and the main reason why the system does not self-reform. It interferes with the three orders of accountability promised by hierarchical structure as represented by the organization chart. Nowhere does the chart imply that hierarchy is supposed to extend to relationships with lowers deferring to uppers in all point-of-view discussions. In fact, the chart is intended to promote an open and honest exchange of viewpoints by designating who ultimately is the decision maker. Logically thinking, once an individual is assured that it's his or her decision to make and that afterwards he or she will have to stand straightly accountable for actual results, there's no reason for that person to censure open and honest dialogue. Standing accountable provides a motive to decide correctly even if it means implementing a plan suggested by someone else.

It's a perversion of purpose that the chart is used to intimidate lowers to place saying what the boss wants to hear ahead of expressing their own beliefs and doing what they believe in their hearts is right for the company. In fact, we can't think of a single instance of an organization coming out ahead when hierarchical structure was extrapolated to create a deferential, “yes, boss” relationship. Certainly no concept of teamwork proposes such an outrageous feature as a top-down command and control discussion format with one-sided accountable relationships. Of course, people at different hierarchical levels have different roles and functions to perform so that the alternative—a two-sided accountable relationship—seldom means mirror image reciprocity. Role and function dictate the specific obligations for which an individual should have to account.