Client Accountability? As a Fractional CFO???

This is the question at the core of running a business, owning a business like, how do we establish healthy accountability? It's such a good question. So often when we see people that try to implement or install accountability into their business for the first time, they experience a ton of resistance from their team. And so this is why it's so important that accountability doesn't just occur haphazardly and then we're actually already alluding in our second R2, it occurs rhythmically.

So armed with this understanding that there's, there's got to be what's essentially accountability metrics in place, a way to self evaluate and client evaluate how things are going there, there comes a time when there's misalignment, when, when we're consistently inconsistent with, with the yellows or the reds. Whether that's from self evaluation of the client, which then the need for accountability from, from the leadership perspective on your team, how do you do that?

What do you do when things aren't going as you wish they were going, Right? And this is the question at the core of running a business, owning a business like, how do we establish healthy accountability? It's such a good question. The first thing that I always like to focus on, both for myself and for the leaders that we coach, is what is accountability? And so often our perspective of accountability is informed by the toxic leaders that we've had in the past that defined accountability as punishment for when you do something wrong. And man, I could tell you a story that would probably be a little bit too long for this video of how when I adopted that mindset as an intern in college and had a team of interns working for me, I made a high school girl cry because she didn't do the reading. And I just said, this is my opportunity for accountability, right? And I was totally off base, right? I was totally off base. But I thought that that was what was right. Is accountability is when you catch someone doing something wrong and you get to punish them, Right? What I have learned since then, thank God, is that healthy accountability is simply to give account for something, right? That's what accountability literally means, is to give account for something. And one of the things that I find helpful to reflect on is Pat Lunchioni has three signs of a miserable immeasurement, irrelevance and anonymity. So immeasurement is, I don't know if I am winning, and I don't even really know what winning is. Irrelevance is, I have no clue how what I'm doing every single day for 40 hours a week connects to the bigger picture. And anonymity is. I don't think anyone knows how I'm spending my time here. And gosh, if they do know, it certainly doesn't seem like they care. Really effective healthy accountability diminishes or even fully dilutes and destroys all three of those signs of a miserable job. But we've got to get our head wrapped around what healthy accountability is. So there's four things that I really like to focus on that if it sounds good to you, I'd like to share kind of those four values of healthy accountability.

Nothing sounds better to me right now.

Okay, very good. Yeah. That could be perceived in two ways. It's like nothing. There's nothing I can think of that would be better than that. But I think you're saying it in a positive way.

Well, it's all about the syllabication.

Ye. There's.

There's nothing that I can think about and there's. There's nothing that I can think about. So we're going to go with the latter.

I like that. Yeah. Okay. So for ours, which is super helpful relational, and this is where I'm always going to start, we already said that leadership starts with relationship. And so this is why it's so important that accountability doesn't just occur haphazardly. And then we're actually already alluding in our second R2, it occurs rhythmically. Right. So it needs to be relational and needs to be rhythmic, because if the only time people hear from you is when something's going wrong or when you're asking for something, you're not leading. Well, so we need to be relational and we need to have rhythms built into our regular leadership agenda of just saying, hey, how are you doing? How is this weekend? How is your family doing? We need to treat people like people because people act the way you treat them. And if you treat them like units of production, don't be surprised when they start acting like units of production. So we're going to be relational. We're going to care about the whole person, and then we're going to be rhythmic. We're going to have ongoing methods for checking in, so it's not a blind side whenever it happens. So often when we see people that try to implement or install accountability into their business for the first time, they experience a ton of resistance from their team. And the reason why oftentimes is because at most other jobs, if someone says, hey, I really want to get serious about accountability, let's have A one on one meeting next week. That means one thing. It means I'm about to get fired. This is about to happen. And that's not what we're trying to do. And so we need to create a rhythm where it becomes normalized, where we just say, man, we think it's really good for us to know what's going on. And we also think it's really good for you to know what winning looks like, because we believe that you are doing the best you can with what you have to work with. And so that's why we talk about a. A rhythm of whether it's every other week or monthly or weekly one on one meetings with a proven system and a proven agenda with your team members. So we're going to be relational, we're going to be rhythmic, we're going to be results oriented. Um, when we say the result is red, we're saying the result is red, not the person is red. We have to be able to divorce the result from the person. We are taking the performance and the result and we're putting it on the table and we're saying, let's talk about that thing. Where is that thing? This is where so often our previous conceptions of accountability can really infect our. The way we perform in the present is I'm not calling you red, I'm not calling you yellow. We are looking at that result together and we are saying that result is either not true, it's inconsistently true, or it's consistently true. And the beautiful thing about putting the result on the table and finding alignment and agreement on where the result is is then we can collaborate together on how do we go about making that result Green. Right? The final one, and there's other attributes that we could go into, but the final one that I think would be helpful to hit on for this audience is real. You do a disservice to yourself and others when you call something green that's actually red because it feels uncomfortable to call something red. And really probably what this actually looks like practically is you call something yellow that's actually red, when in reality it would be way better for you to be really direct and really honest. To be unclear is to be unkind. And I know because my physical body will tell me if I'm feeling stress around a certain area of our business and how we're performing our business, I will feel it in my side and I'll feel it in my jaw, right? And I know, man, if I'm being self aware, I know something about this is not the way that it should be. And I have two options. I can be courageous and I can say, hey, this feels vulnerable to talk about, but something about this is not right. And I may not even have it fully figured out what it is. But I need to talk to the person that owns this area and we need to just talk about this and we need to like dig into this because. Or I can be courageous or I can be a coward and I can say, it's all good, we've got this, it's all good. The thing is, is that the pain in my side and the clenched jaw, it has a way of expressing itself. It's either going to express itself in a way that's proactive and healthy, or it's going to express itself in a way that's reactive and unhealthy. And so if we have a rhythm of intentional one on one meetings with our team members and we're evaluating results that have been predefined and pre established, well then it's actually not just in my best, it's in their best interest as well and everyone's best interest for me to show up and be really, really, really real and just call it like it is.

A couple questions to go deeper on, on a few of those, Alex. One is how can we as leaders create a culture where people feel safe calling their own areas red when they're red and not trying to convince themselves or others that it's yellow or green when it's actually red?

How do you create a culture of honest accountability within a team where people are willing to call out the things that are going wrong?

Sounds way smarter than the way I worded it, but yes.

Do you know the name Alan Mulally?

Alan Mulally from Ford?

Yeah. Well done, man. That was pretty, that was pretty sharp. So came from Boeing, took over. Ford is largely accredited for the saving of Ford. Ford was the 1American auto company that didn't take government bailout money in 2008. And he completely turned it around. Whenever he showed up, they were projected to lose $12 billion year one or something like that, if I'm getting my numbers right. And I'll never forget whenever I heard him tell this story, he said, you know, within nine months we were, we were already at a 14 billion dollar loss. And so he said, I beat the goal right is how I took it. That's how he is. He's kind of whimsical, it's kind of wild, but it really actually reflects the character that he has that I think shows up in this story is one of the things that he did pretty immediately after getting on the ground, creating a rhythm of intentional meetings with the regional VPs of Ford, right? So these are. I mean, VPs of, like, North America and VPs of Europe, right? I mean, these are people that are responsible for massive swaths of the globe and Ford's production and sales in those areas. And they had some critical metrics, which is so much of what you teach, that they would evaluate around the table. And one of the ways that he would start is like, okay, we've established our critical measures. How are we doing in these areas? And they would go around the table, and he would have everyone kind of evaluate and everything at this regular, recurring meeting. And they started meeting, and he started doing this, and green, green, green, green, green, green, green, green, green. And the way he tells the story is he just looked at me. He's like, we are on Track to lose $14 billion, and you are telling me that we are green right now? Okay, we'll meet again next week. Green, green, green, green, green. Okay, we'll meet again next week. Green, green, green, green, green. A culture had been created within the Ford organization. If you say anything less than green, your head's going to get chopped. And so he was swimming upstream of that, and eventually people started saying, this meeting is a waste of time. I can't show up to this anymore. And he would just say, well, the regional VPs of Ford are going to be at this meeting. And they would say, but I can't make it. He's like, okay, that's fine. The regional VPs of Ford are going to be at this meeting. So the way he tells the story, and I'll shorten it somewhere, is finally they showed up. Green, green, green, green, yellow. And I think everyone thought that the thing in Austin Powers was gonna happen where he presses the button and the guy falls through the floor and you see flame. And that didn't happen. Not only did that not happen, Alan talked to that guy afterwards, and he said, hey, at our next meeting, I want you to sit right next to me. I want you to sit right next to me. And. And that's what the guy did. The guy came and sat next to him. And Alan was really friendly with him before the meeting, right? Cause Alan knows everyone's watching what happens, because this guy said yellow. And that occurred. The guy sat next to him. Everyone sees that happen. Yellow, red, yellow, red, yellow, red. He said it was like a Christmas tree, right? Because Alan had to display what happens when things are not okay. And the way you respond as a leader when things are not as they should be doesn't just send a message to your people that really care. It sends a message to everyone else on our team that, that we can be honest. And in light of what the truth that we see, we can collaborate on that together. So really thinking critically about how do I create a standard that we're regularly evaluating and then when something is yellow or red, make sure people can be honest. And then if we wanted to focus on another r. Focus on restoration from that and. And you. You got to really guard against not getting complacent around red or yellow. You got to focus on restoration.

There has to come a time, though, when as a leader, you say, okay, we've played the red and yellow game for some period of time. There's a business outcome that is suboptimal as a result of the consistent red and yellows. What we've tried hasn't worked. When do you know that it's time to say, all right, we're going to push the button, the chair is going to go through the ground, and the fire is going to come up?

Well, I would say we never involve fire is what I would say. I don't like the pirate techniques.

We each have our own standards. But, okay, we'll agree to disagree on this one.

That's right. Yeah. So when is it time to say, man, we've tried this and it's clearly not a good fit and we need to move in different directions? I think what helps about having a rhythm and having results oriented, real accountability is oftentimes what you will see is that person will come to that conclusion at the same time, if not before you do. But the phrase I like to keep in mind is the person who has this job gets these results. And the principle we have to keep in mind from a leadership perspective is I am responsible to you. I can't be responsible for you. So I am responsible to provide you with a clear picture of what the results are with clear communication around how you're doing on that results, with maybe equipping on the tools and the software and the techniques that you need to get those results. Results. I'm responsible to provide all those things. And that is no small responsibility. What I can't be responsible for is you doing the work to get those results. But the person who has these jobs, this job is going to get these results. And, man, if we're going to do this in as graceful of a conversation as possible, the way I like to hold these conversations. And the way we like to work with leaders and coach leaders on having these conversations is by having a really direct, truth filled, loving conversation with the person you're talking to and saying, hey, I care about you and I would love for you to be a part of this team. And in order for that to happen, you're going to need to be green on these results. And currently we've been red or yellow for X amount of time. I believe that you can do what it takes to get there. However, it's gonna be a lot of work. It's gonna be insane intensity. It's gonna cause you to go like double. In terms of care, maybe in terms of hours, maybe in terms of intentionality. What you're doing right now, I believe you can do it. I'm not positive you want to. And if you don't want to, because this isn't the right fit for you, we can still be friends and it's okay. And we can just say, man, this isn't a good fit. However, if you say that you do want to, we are going to put together this 90 day plan and you are going to start moving down that path and we're going to meet regularly to check on how you're doing. And I want to let you know we are not turning back beyond this point and it is going to be really, really hard. And so I would like for you to take 24 hours or a weekend or some time talking to your spouse. And I want you to really think about, is this a journey that you want to go on? Because if you do decide you want to go on it, I will support you, but I can't do it for you. However, if you decide it's not for you, then let's figure out a way to do that where we can both stay friends and where we can make sure you get pointed in a direction that's going to be really good for you and your family.