One of the challenges most entrepreneurs face is building a culture of accountability. As much as we want everyone to own their results, most employees can’t answer the three basic questions (who’s my boss, what’s my job, how do I know if I’m doing well). After many years of trial and error, here are the six steps I’ve learned to build a culture of accountability:
- Start by answering the three basic questions for every employee
- Decide on 3-5 operational metrics with goals that each employee owns and reports on weekly (e.g. story points, calls made, appointments set, marketing qualified leads generated, customer satisfaction scores, billable hours, revenue, etc.)
- Review the employee’s day-to-day/week-to-week work at a daily check-in or weekly team meeting along with their metrics
- Provide a central system (like a Google Sheet KPIs Dashboard) for each department with everyone’s metrics so that there is peer accountability and visibility
- Analyze the personal goals on a quarterly basis as part of the quarterly check-ins
- Tie everything together with the Simplified One Page Strategic Plan and help each employee understand how their goals align to the company’s goals
While this process seems straightforward, very few entrepreneurs actually implement this type of system. Why? It’s requires a tremendous amount of ongoing leadership and management, and most entrepreneurs don’t understand the value. The next time an entrepreneur expresses interest in growing faster and scaling more efficiently, ask them about their existing culture of accountability.
What else? What are some more thoughts on these six steps to build a culture of accountability?
David Cummings on Startups 
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