Transparency & Accountability In Business

What are some things that you can do to build an accountable, transparent organization? So it might just take a moment. I'd love for you guys to brainstorm, scribble it down either onto a bit of paper, think about specifically transparency, specifically accountability, and list out any ideas that you might have on how you could build those qualities up inside your organizations? What are specific actions? Just before we throw to a timer, James, is there anything you want to add there?

No, I think one of the things that was actually the Ryan Stannard case study you did, and there's a snippet of what he says there, and I love how straight-talking Ryan is, and he speaks about one of the ways he likes to help enroll team, and it sounds like tough love, but it's actually to try and level up the staff, which is If you do things your way and it goes wrong, that's your fault. But if you follow the systems, that's like our way, and it goes wrong, that's my fault. And that's a really empowering thing for a team member when you think about it, to go, hey, if you just follow what we're setting out here, we're going to take the blame and we're going to set you up for success. And so I love that as a really simplistic way to help people go, oh, actually it makes my life easier because I don't have to take the blame. Because if I follow that, then that's going to make sure that it's the business's responsibility to get a great outcome.

When you think about each of those things, so transparency and accountability, what creates transparency? And really, that's what I want you to try and get down when you're thinking about what are the action items for you. What creates transparency? That means everybody can see what's happening. There are no black boxes, there is no data or knowledge hoarding. You've got clear documented processes that are visible for everybody, and it's all happening out in the open. What has to happen for accountability? It needs to be clear who is doing what by when. There needs to be clear targets and expectations and clear standards. And everybody needs to be on that same page. So I'd love to hear, I don't know if anybody either wants to unmute, thinking specifically about your business and where you're at, what things can you put in place to start to build this culture? Uh, Merlin, I saw you unmuted there.

Yeah, so we operate according to the EOS protocols, and they operate very nicely with the Four Disciplines of Execution. So starting with focusing on the wildly important and setting what our 10-year vision is, our 3-year picture, breaking that down into a 1-year and then quarterly rocks, and then endeavoring to set lead measure, measurables that are in keeping with those goals of where we want to go. And then that translates into dashboards and scorecards that we're visiting on, on at least a weekly cadence with the teams with specific targets for each one of the measurables. And if we fall short of any of those measurables, making that an issue to discuss and solve as a team to figure out what's the obstacle to failure to achieve that. Sometimes it's a people problem, sometimes it's a process problem, but trying to get to the heart of what that thing is and then resolving it so that next week we can actually achieve that target.

I love every time that you open your mouth, Merlin. I'm gonna lean on you more often. That was perfect. I love it. Getting everybody enrolled in a big vision and getting them on board and understanding here's what the objective is, and then breaking it down into quarterly tasks, figuring out what your big rocks are, having this front and center. That helps for people to understand the importance, which nails something that James is talking about in that triangle, because we're saying, here's why this is important, because it's helping us to get to that vision, and here are the tasks that need to be done. And then we assign accountability, and then we go all the way down to a dashboard. What are the key numbers to make sure that we are on track to hit those? I think that is a key part of creating a really transparent, accountable organization. I love that. What else have we got? Anyone else want to share?

I think I would just pick up on what Merlin was saying there, because I think where we're working with clients, again thinking of EOS, it's like often when you work with a client, there's a lack of vision within the business. So therefore it's hard for everybody to understand where the business is going. And then below that, as you start to look at departmentalizing things, it's a question of, are people in the right seats? Have they got the right organization structure? So it's almost like you, you need to do those things before sometimes you're trying to put things into the right departments. Yeah, some of the businesses just haven't gone through that exercise themselves because they've just grown organically, added people, and not really thought from a top-down view. So that becomes really important to bring that sort of right up here before you continue down here with the systems, if that makes sense.

Love it. I think that down to the accountability and creating your org chart and your position descriptions, like, we get all the way down to the nitty-gritty then, which is what Systemology is about— identifying the 80/20 and what are the key systems. And once they're identified, the next step is then to go, and who's accountable to those? And then they get attached to a Now, when you're working with existing team, that's making— we're bringing the potentially invisible visible. And then for new team members, when they come on board, right from the get-go, we're saying, here is your role, here is what you're accountable for, here are the 10 or 15 most critical systems that you will be responsible to that are related to your role. So a big part of this is, uh, and we'll talk about some of the software stack stuff, getting things clearly documented and then using project management platform. A lot of these really helps with that accountability. Does anyone have any other suggestions or ideas that they came up with on how you can create this? Salvatore?

Yes, we also have a business stack already in place, and we have a system And I strongly believe what we're missing is when everybody is finishing something, why not to provide feedback how it went? And that's what really we're not doing at all. And then from that feedback, the way that you said it properly, how to have some key performance indicators in the way that we're doing this system. And then provide or implement the incentives that you're saying. We're not doing that, and I think maybe it will be a very good approach because we have the project management system, the system hub, but in reality, we don't provide feedback on how the system went.

I love that. One of the ways that EOS tackles that is they have a thing they call the issues list. Getting into place somewhere where you're capturing challenges or problems throughout the month, and then you have a mechanism, maybe once a month you review your issues list and you go through. And we know all problems are systems problems, so whenever an issue comes up, you'll try and get to the root cause of it and trace it back to a process. So I think that's one way to do it. Another way to do is at the end of a cycle time, once you've finished something, at the completion of that task, part one of the steps, one of the last steps. For example, when we run a masterclass, many of you attended our recent one, one of the final steps is to have a meeting afterwards and go, what worked and what didn't, and what do we need to do to improve the process for next time? Because it's quite a large, complex system with lots of subsystems. So that becomes part of that feedback loop is part of it. I think that's another really great one. Sam, you had a couple of notes there. I don't know if you want to voice that. I think that was another great one.

Oh, I was just saying that obviously employees all need to have their own expectations set, but I really think that being clear about who you are and who you're trying to hire from the beginning, not just trying to hire for a role of this, but your flavor of that role, what you're about, how, what expectations you have. We, We've modified our hiring process. So we're talking about what our core values are upfront, what our expectations of people are upfront. So if you're looking for a systems-driven person, they'd be stupid to stay in the hiring process if you're very clear about that and that's not something they appeal to. So you want to both try to find the right people, but you also want to repel the people who are the wrong people so that they, you don't mistakenly hire them at the same time.

Yeah, perfect. So I think really thinking on this some more and spending some time and thinking, we've got a few great ideas here, you've got your own. As the leader of your organisation, you want to ruthlessly seek out those that are counterproductive to building a transparent, accountable organisation. You want a transparent, accountable organisation because it brings everything out in the open. Gets very clear on who's doing what, which is essential for removing key person dependency. So if there's anyone in your organization that's hoarding information or not wanting to share, that for me is a really big red flag. And in business, you get to choose who you hire. So why not get great team members that want to work towards a common vision, that want to be clear on who's doing what, just like a high-performance Sports team, everybody's got a role, you know what we're doing, like we come together with this common purpose, like we want to approach business just like you might a high-performance sports team. Just a heads up, that clip was taken from a session in our Systems Champion Certification Program, which is the world's first and only program for systems champions to help you build a systems culture and develop an AI-first approach and roll it out inside your organization. To find out more, head over to systemology.com/systemschamp, and I'll see you in there.