If you’ve created a strategy and you’re accountable for it, you’re more likely to want to protect it at all costs. Do you agree? Unless of course, you’ve surrounded yourself with trustworthy, balanced expertise and you have sufficient humility to admit mistakes and learn from them!

What type of accountability doesn’t work? 

In my early days as a project architect, I often felt accountable for the project's success. At the time I didn’t think anything of it and I‘m not sure whether my superiors even noticed. Now, I wouldn’t dream of allowing a project architect to feel such a heavy burden – although I would welcome strong commitment. 

It’s important to distinguish between commitment and accountability.

You’d be hard-pressed to find an accountable person who isn’t committed. But let’s face it, commitment has innocence to it. If things don’t go to plan, committed people generally focus on fixing it but don’t need to worry about diving into a deep introspective of why it went wrong. 

Unless this drives them personally.

Commitment without accountability means you’re likely to either make repetitive mistakes or miss valuable opportunities.

BUT at the same time, you don’t want multiple people accountable for the very same things. Commitment requires serious energy too. Reward it.

How can you best assign accountability so that it is appropriate and meaningful? 

If your project is modest in scale and has very few specialisms involved, as the project leader you are probably best placed to take on the responsibilities for its implementation in full. But if your project is larger in scale or has several highly technical or specialist requirements for it to succeed, I would urge you to seek appropriate accountability partners. 

Clarity around accountability is essential. But it shouldn’t exist without an adequate support strategy, a vision, framework, feedback loops and the ability to track progress.

I highly recommend mapping out potential accountability partners and how often they need to communicate. Focus on disciplines whose people have a habit of avoiding each other like the plague, for example, cost and design teams or construction and design teams.

The cross-over areas or grey zones where no one claims ownership is another area to scrub the surface on. These places are typically where the problems emerge. Some try to solve this with the insertion of Interface Managers, but this dilutes clarity and reduces the direct communication between accountability partners. On large, significantly complex projects someone who can champion the resolution of the grey zones might be wise - if not unpopular with the team. 

But think twice before initiating this on smaller or more straightforward projects.

Equally, be alive to the political and external stakeholder relationships that may assign accountabilities on your behalf. 

Accountability partners help you to:

•   Stay the course or course correct – but never be complacent
•   Keep you credible
•   Improve action, decision-making and progress

Your best bet is to consistently talk about levels of accountability in your teams and ensure that it is appropriately distributed, fair, supported and most of all understood.

I am keen to spark conversations for leaders within the built environment. I have written a book that is intended as a pragmatic blueprint to support courageous leaders in pursuit of high-quality project outcomes.

Our industry has some amazing opportunities and challenges ahead, that can use collective wisdom. You can book a call or check out my new book, plus learn more about our resources and services available for every budget with the tabs above and below. 

Enabling your success!