Build a Culture of Accountability With Work Design  🔗 **Source:** [Build a Culture of Accountability With Work Design](https://share.snipd.com/episode/0dbb0be2-9275-47de-bf61-94a27b7da016) ## Highlights - **Pharma Case Study That Triggered A Work Design Review** - Dave, a new head of operations at a pharmaceutical manufacturer, asked for a pulse check because staff often responded to missed targets with an "oh well" attitude. - Low accountability here posed safety risks since the company makes products that go into people, prompting urgent work-design fixes. Transcript: Rachel Cooke I got a call not long ago from a guy named Dave. He'd been newly appointed as the head of operations with a pharmaceutical manufacturer. Early days for him, and he was feeling concerned by a culture that, in his words, was lacking ownership and accountability. People were missing targets, dropping balls, and when it happened, the response was a little more, oh well, guess I'll try harder next time, then I need to fix this ASAP. Dave put it bluntly and told me, we make things that go into people. There is no margin for error here. Low accountability wasn't just frustrating, but in cases, it could be life-threatening. So he asked my team to come in and run a pulse check, to talk to the people doing the work and understand what was actually getting in the way, and help him figure out how to build genuine Accountability into the culture. ([Time 0:02:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c8d3e077-6359-4c2f-bfa2-79fc921133a1)) - **Weave The Customer Why Into Daily Work** - Drive a stronger connection to the why to increase ownership of outcomes. - Weave customer impact stories and reminders (e.g., that products go into people) into kickoffs, updates, and forecasts so monotonous conveyor-belt work feels meaningful. Transcript: Rachel Cooke Our first recommendation was drive a stronger connection to the why. And this might sound soft, but the data is strong. People feel ownership of outcomes when they feel connected to something meaningful. For Dave's team, that really is about how they make things that go into people. In our focus groups, we learned that his employees know this fact, but they feel distant from it day to day. Like as they're pushing things down a conveyor or keying data into a computer, that purpose doesn't feel top of mind. So their work feels monotonous. It has to be woven more deliberately into plans and project kickoffs and forecasts. We need reminders of the customer on the other end of the work. We need stories of wins and how people's lives were impacted by the stuff going down the conveyor. And frankly, people just need to be reminded that that stuff traveling down the conveyor is going into people. Just weaving more of the customer perspective into their project update was an important start. ([Time 0:03:59](https://share.snipd.com/snip/726e4acf-e674-47df-bcfd-155e5e4db5a0)) - **Investigate Recurring Misses Not Personal Failings** - Get curious about recurring patterns instead of reacting with blame. - Investigate root causes like supplier errors and information breakdowns; asking the right questions revealed a supplier error that was easily solvable in Dave's plant. Transcript: Rachel Cooke Sometimes a ball gets dropped. It happens. But when the same ball keeps getting dropped, this is a signal worth investigating. What we found in Dave's organization was that leaders were often responding to recurring misses with frustration or blame, which is shockingly unhelpful and not so much motivating. When a pattern shows up on repeat, the more useful question is, can you help me understand what is getting in the way? Is this an informational breakdown, an equipment issue? Are you getting conflicting direction from different parts of the organization? In this company, for example, we learned that the work orders from one of their suppliers consistently arrived with errors or inconsistencies, all requiring manual corrections. But no one had ever asked the right questions to learn this. It was a solvable problem. When leaders ask the right questions, they can help find solutions, which in turn allows them to demonstrate a genuine commitment to solving these problems, which makes people start To feel like they're in it with you. ([Time 0:05:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4aaf5b4f-224f-4116-a2ef-cfdcc6b26a72)) - **Ask How Will We Instead Of Why Didn't You** - Replace "Why didn't you?" with "How will we get there?" to invite collaboration. - The reframing shifted three competing production teams from finger-pointing to jointly building transparent schedules and sharing resources. Transcript: Rachel Cooke Next up was ask, how will we, instead of why didn't you? The language we use when things go wrong matters more than we realize. Why didn't you hit that target? Put someone on the defensive immediately. It signals blame. And a defensive person is typically not a person feeling ownership. They're usually feeling cornered. How will we get there signals something totally different. It says we're in this together and it invites problem solving rather than self-preservation. In this case, for example, we found that three different production teams were competing for the same resources. They were too busy pointing fingers to actually take a step back and feel accountable for driving resolution. Simply by asking how can we solve this together, invited the teams to come together and make their own production needs more transparent and ultimately build out schedules that allowed Them to better share these critical resources. Now, to be clear, this is not about ignoring genuine individual performance issues, which can also exist, and those need to be addressed directly. But often for the majority of misses, that how will we framing opens up far more productive territory than why didn't you? ([Time 0:08:17](https://share.snipd.com/snip/72417929-2714-4b60-b03a-b09d70d5d297)) - **Give People Authority To Match Accountability** - Empower frontline teams with authority to act when they spot problems. - In the plant, teams hit targets but lacked approval power to fix staffing or machine issues, so expanding decision rights prevented delays and disengagement. Transcript: Rachel Cooke Next, empower people to actually own the outcome. And this one hit hard in this company. The production teams were being held accountable for hitting daily targets, but when they spotted a problem, like a staffing issue or a piece of machinery that needed some attention, They weren't empowered to do anything about it. They needed approval from above, which took time, and in the meantime, the target slipped. Accountability without authority is a setup for disengagement. If you want people to own outcomes, they have to actually control the levers that drive those outcomes. That might mean rethinking approval chains or expanding decision rights at the front line. But without it, accountability really just stays theoretical. ([Time 0:09:33](https://share.snipd.com/snip/16e05d65-339f-4216-a822-4739ca753fa8)) - **Goal Misalignment Feels Like Poor Accountability** - Misaligned team goals create friction that looks like low accountability. - Production optimized for volume while QA optimized for quality, so both did their jobs but worked at cross-purposes until goals were realigned. Transcript: Rachel Cooke Sometimes low accountability isn't about attitude or culture, but alignment. In this organization, for example, we found that production teams were being held primarily accountable for volume, while the quality assurance teams were chasing, of course, quality. Both teams were doing exactly what they were measured on, but in doing so, they were kind of holding each other back. When different teams are optimizing for different outcomes, friction becomes inevitable, and the accountability that gets lost in that friction isn't anyone's fault. Again, it's a work design problem. The fix starts with getting clear on what you're actually collectively chasing and making sure that goals across teams are pulling in the same direction rather than against each other. ([Time 0:10:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/56e79fda-d1a3-4097-b685-afc4e578c3dd))