Accountable Results

Inspect What You Expect- 7 Steps to Getting Accountable Results

Getting Accountable Results: It was late in 2013. We were about to have our first “Health of the Business Review.” My RVP, peer AVP’s, the sales operations team, and I had prepped for this review the entire week. We knew our business inside and out. Our cadence was tight. We had a solid activity model with strong reporting that had us growing our results.

The EVP arrived for our review and sat down to a binder of numbers with supporting presentations attached to them. Within the first Sales AVP readout, I noticed the EVP asking questions like she was not even aware we were hitting the lead measured to our KPI’s. Honestly, it surprised me that she did not have her dashboard of each region’s lead measures. The remainder of the review felt like an NFL head coach who went into a game without talking to his defensive and offensive coordinator.

While our plans, programs, and activity cadence shined in our review, I came away disappointed. I was not looking for the EVP to micromanage our operation. However, I was looking for a solid business professional who set expectations, measured said expectations, and inspected what success requires.

To me, it felt like, “nothing says I don’t give a darn about you (employee or org.) like not knowing your performing or not.” The aloofness of leaders who walk into a meeting and say, “hand me the clipboard” is not an accountable leader at all.

From that day forward, I swore to myself I would be the type of leader in it WITH my people. At that point, I not only adopted but adapted the “Inspect what your Expect” practices outlined toward the bottom of this post.”

Origins of “Inspect What You Expect”-

It is tough to say which thought leader orated this hall of fame popular quote. The quote is traced back to too many resources. This list is impressive though, including Louis V. Gerstner, Peral Zhu, W. Clement Stone, W. Edwards Deming, John McAfee, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Peter Drucker, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Jim Rohn (which means include Tony Robbins), and of course my favorite “Unknown.” Those references are, without counting, one of my favorite quotes close to the inspect quote. It is Covey’s quote of “if you are not measuring, you are just practicing.” I like Covey’s because it has a sarcastic backhand to those manager types who refuse to look at KPIs.

As I looked up the terms and usage of the quote, it ranged from micromanaging numbers, hard-charging accountability leaders to servant leaders being in the trenches with their teams. In my opinion, the answer is ‘YES’ all of the above except for the ‘micromanaging’ part. Below I will explain my philosophy further.

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 7 Steps to Getting Accountable Results-

The truth is that inspecting what you expect comes when you use it as an education and coaching tool. It is not a scope-locked ‘Goodhart’s Law’ myopic staring at a dashboard. In this post, I will outline the seven steps of using this process to get accountable results.

Step 1- Reverse Engineer Success:

Regardless of whether you have been in a role or take on a new position, it would be best if you always broke down the key metrics. Reverse engineering success includes taking what the primary target and objectives are to be successful. The measures may be sales targets, operational metrics, service delivery, or organizational goals. The key results tie to compensable targets.

From this point, take the target and break it down by lead measures required to hit the number. An example is how many funnels at our current close rate are needed to hit our sales number. Then take the lead measures to those. Like how many leads do you need to converted to create the required funnel? I call this process engineering the “Lead Measures to the Lead Measures.”

Note- Do not build this model off stretch target measures. Build the lead measures off what is possible with minimum or average effort. This ‘fudge factor’ protects your plan and cadence from the grossly missing target when challenges arise.

Step 2- Build a Measurements Dashboard:

The next step is to create your dashboard with subsequent visibility for your team. To do this, you need to go into your system or tools electronically to see if data is available. Sometimes, the lead measures required to get accountable results are not in your plan or tools. It would be best to evaluate whether the lead measure is valuable enough to calculate manually.

Depending on the critical nature of the more time-sensitive results, you need to determine whether the measures are daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly. There are times where some of these may vary. Just make sure the reporting is not too arduous for yourself or the operations reporting teams. Make it repeatable.

Step 3- Let the Education Process Begin:

An unexplained goal, lead measure, target, or objective down to the individual contributors is futile insanity. All too often, I see leaders either assuming that everybody understands what and why the goal exists. Certain results seem self-explanatory. Goals like total billed revenue, monthly reoccurring revenue, repair commitments met, service delivery metrics seem like all should understand. However, if those who need to deliver those results do not understand the path it takes to succeed, you have lost. So, education from you is critical to achieving accountable results.

Start by fully educating your staff on the lead measures, the importance, and how to achieve the measure. Take some time to establish how you came to the measure. Repeat this process every chance you get to make your leaders coach on this topic. Remember, adults need to hear things three times or more to understand and lock in the knowledge.

Lastly, educate the individual contributors and reinforce the coverage multiple times. This process includes educating them on how to be successful and how these lead measures are for them. It sounds cliché, but you are helping them be successful at their jobs. It is important to focus on them being successful against the bigger objectives and not the specific lead measure.

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Step 4- Let It Soak, Let Them Execute:

Once the education process is complete, you need to let your staff and their direct reports attempt to execute against the measures. I always view this point as ‘pushing play.’ You have set up the foundation, you have created knowledge transfer, and hopefully, you have motivated the team with support. For the next thirty to sixty days, you need to let this play out before starting the inspection process.

During this period, it does not mean let go completely. Watch the dashboards you have created and give gentle nudges to staff members missing certain lead measures. The hands-on experience for the staff and teams allows them to gain ownership as you hone the reporting metrics.

Step 5- Communicate Expectations Frequently:

It is a critical step of inspecting what you expect to ensure frequent communication of desired results. The verbiage, conversations, and expectations need to be in all your meetings. It does not matter if it is one-on-ones, staff meetings, team stand-ups, or water cooler talk. The measures need to become part of the organization’s DNA.

Additionally, make sure you recognize success in terms of the lead measures. When you see success, call it out in public, in passing, in an email, on an all-hands call, and maybe even give out some swag. The occasional, “Hey Suzy, I see you are crushing your sales funnel” in passing goes a long way. My last point on this is to gamify this process. The fewer people see it as a punitive measure and something to help them achieve successful results, the absolute better.

In proper communication, it is also necessary to come to agreements and understandings. All too frequently, the workforce is aware of the negative consequences of missing targets, goals, and measures. As a leader, you must let them know that they need to hit the target within the coaching or performance management plan. However, it is healthier for the work environment if you have agreements to hit the lead measures. It makes the forthcoming inspection process more accountable. Speak in terms like, “We all agree we need to hit this to be successful?” This way, if they miss it, they know they are not hitting the accountability measures.

Step 6- It is Inspection Time:

Let me start with this is not punitive or negative. I mean this with all genuine sincerity; this is not a disciplinary ‘inspection,’ this is a coaching session; this is your opportunity to leverage the skills that helped promote you to a leader. Throughout the last thirty to sixty days, you should have reviewed the lead measures and trends in detail. You need to know the measurements, results, and who is performing going into the inspection sessions.

Ideally, set up a monthly cadence review of each one of your teams. As an RVP of sales, I would review each director team each month. The director would lead the review with the sales managers reading out on each of their team members. In these sessions, my role is the absolute coach. My goal is to further the education and application of the lead measures. The ‘Inspection’ part ensures the team and managers understand what we are trying to accomplish. Also, this is to assure they are accountable to their team members.

People do not like to be embarrassed and naturally become uncomfortable if they do not know something. By this, I mean missteps during an inspection session typically only happen once. It is human nature to make sure the uncomfortable situation never happens again. The cadenced inspection makes sure they come ready and accountable not to be ‘that guy or gal.’

Step 7- Always Sharpen the Saw:

From the time you roll out the initial lead measures through your monthly cadence inspection sessions, you always have the opportunity to improve the process. You will not have everything right the first time or the twelfth time. Be humble enough to keep challenging your thought and trending measures to become an ideal state as a servant leader. Also, try to make sure the process is lean and adds velocity from reporting to readouts.

Additionally, sharpening the saw should include direct feedback from the team. Those on the frontline see what works and what is cumbersome. Create a feedback loop with the layers below you. Be willing to take the tangible feedback and put it into action. Using the input is a great opportunity to gain employee engagement. Employees like seeing their feedback not only taken into consideration but taken into action. The use of someone’s ideas also proves you are not micromanaging them but furthering your efforts to help them succeed.

Conclusion-

To achieve a highly accountable workforce, delivering solid results takes your full engagement. The example I started this post out with, the leader not only did not know what the organization was doing but did not establish appropriate measures. Not having a solid dashboard of lead measures driving the overall success leaves a leader flying blind. However, failing to inspect the measure assures missing the targets and not being successful.

Accountable results-driven organizations take leadership and execution. Following the seven steps outlined above will help you as a leader create a culture of engaged expectations. The lead measures, communication, inspection process, and part of the larger team’s success will make accountability second nature. Lastly, throughout this process, the greatest role you play is not as boss, leader, or management. To be the greatest coach you can be to help everybody in your organization hit their results.

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