A successful leader, who we had worked with, was being actively recruited for a position on the senior executive team of a major corporation. As part of interviewing process, she had the opportunity to speak with each member of the senior team. To her surprise, each of the CEO’s direct reports had anxiously counseled her on “what” and “what not” to say to the CEO. Needless to say, she was very concerned about what she’d heard and experienced. She did not want to be part of a senior team that focused more on posturing and politics than on achieving real results, but she also really wanted the job. When she finally sat down with the CEO, she chose to be completely open and candid, “I have been coached and counseled on ‘what’ and ‘what not’ to say in this interview by every member of your team.” After pausing a moment, she continued, “Is that what you want and expect from the members of your senior team? Because if it is, I’m not sure I want the job.” The CEO looked at her long and hard before he responded, “No, it’s not how I want this team or this organization to operate…let’s talk about how you can help me change it.”

She did take the job and together they did change the culture by creating a genuinely open and candid environment where concerns were easily discussed, opinions were always respected, ideas were vigorously debated, and judgments were never passed prematurely or inappropriately. To learn more about how to create a truly open and candid work environment, join our Accountability Community at www.ozprinciple.com, where you can review the accounts of actual leaders and organizations.

Accountability Community is a registered trademark of Partners In Leadership Inc.

Failure to do so can lead to disastrous results. Kmart is a case in point. The discount retailer built a powerful brand only to see it taken over by Target and Walmart. Holding on to basic assumptions and biases about low prices, product quality, store location, and marketing were not enough to save the one-time $40 billion retailer from massive layoffs, store closings, and bankruptcy. When competitors such as Target, Walmart, Sam’s Club and Costco changed the game, built stronger brands, and developed clearer marketing messages, Kmart just kept doing the same old things because, after all, it had been the first mover in the market. Big mistake. If Kmart executives had been willing to challenge their assumptions and biases, they may have been able to improve their powerful brand instead of resting on past success. They may have been able to embrace new technology instead of giving in to the resistance of employees. They may have been able to focus their marketing strategy instead of letting it bounce all over the place. They may have been able to manage cash flow instead of letting profits dwindle year after year.

Know yourself. Understand your strengths and weaknesses. Develop the humility to surround yourself with people who are better and brighter than you are, people willing to challenge you and your assumptions and biases. The major reason for business failure is poor management, caused by leaders who did not recognize their weaknesses and did not seek help from those whose strengths could have helped. To learn more about how to keep yourself Above The Line by constantly challenging your assumptions and biases, join our Accountability Community at www.ozprinciple.com, where you can review the accounts of actual leaders and organizations.

Above The Line and Accountability Community are both registered trademarks of Partners In Leadership Inc.

Take a minute and think about a time in your life when you were part of a team or Expectations Chain that effectively applied NEDs to successfully deliver on a key expectation. Deconstruct the experience in your mind. Was the key expectation or desired outcome clearly understood by everyone involved? Did everyone demonstrate accountability and ownership for making it happen? What did you do when an individual or group along the Expectations Chain began to falter or seemed to be in jeopardy of not delivering their needed contribution? Were the NEDs clearly established, constantly discussed, regularly monitored, and consistently met? How did you feel when the expectation was successfully met? Contrast that feeling with a time when you didn’t deliver on a key expectation. How did the people on your team and along the Expectations Chain feel after failing to meet the expectation?

Remember, real change and true success begins with a statement of what you (individually or as an organization) want to have happen. Stating your expectation, and making it as accurate as possible, helps you to clarify the outcome you need to achieve. When you add NEDs to your key expectations, it means no excuses will be accepted for failure to delivery on specified milestones and deadlines. To learn more about how to effectively establish and fulfill key expectations through our Accountability Sequence process, join our Accountability Community at www.ozprinciple.com, where you can review the accounts of actual companies.

Expectations Chain, Accountability Sequence, and Accountability Community are registered trademarks of Partners In Leadership Inc.

FedEx not only thrives on the challenge of solving customer problems but it also believes that profit is a by-product of resolving those issues. To solve its customers’ problems, FedEx has introduced a variety of new services over the years, including special home delivery, ground transportation, high volume business to consumer services, urgent freight services, Kinko’s office and print services, customs brokerage services, trade advisory services, supply chain management, and cloud print services. All of these represent new solutions to new customer needs. It’s the company’s “whatever it takes to get the job done” attitude that makes every employee a customer problem solver. FedEx Chairman and CEO Fred Smith describes the philosophy this way: “The simple truth of today’s consumer is that they expect more, they expect different, and they have more options for getting those expectations met … no matter how good you are you’ve always got to get better … satisfying your customer is a never-ending process … the sooner you accept that premise, the sooner you’ll begin raising the satisfaction quotient for your customer.”

Solve your customers’ problems and the profits will follow. If you are already meeting your customers’ current needs, then focus on solving their future challenges, the ones they don’t even realize are coming. There will always be new issues and new solutions; if you don’t discover them, someone else will, and when they do they’ll take your customers away.

To learn more about how a Culture of Accountability can help your organization solve customer problems better, faster, and cheaper than your competitors, join our Accountability Community at www.ozprinciple.com, where you can review the accounts of actual companies.

Culture of Accountability and Accountability Community are registered trademarks of Partners In Leadership Inc.

Of course, all organizational rules, policies, procedures, processes, and systems are instituted to address specific needs and circumstances—the problem is that needs and circumstances change weekly, even daily. At eBay there are no barriers to accomplishing anything and everything necessary to grow the company’s robust trading network. eBay has 100 million active users, many of whom earn their living off the site, are a creative demanding crowd who don’t want to be stopped from achieving their desired results. Early in the company’s development, after a systems crash that nearly swamped the start-up firm, then CEO Meg Whitman hired Maynard Webb away from Gateway, she paid him more than twice her own salary and gave him an open road to building a system infrastructure that now handles over a billion transactions per day. Of course, the system has continued to advance.

Keeping your organizational culture and infrastructure flexible and easily adaptable are the new key success factors. Don’t let your people experience frustration, anger, and disengagement over organizational barriers—whenever they do, it is a clear sign that some of your organization’s rules, policies, procedures, processes or systems have hindered, rather than assisted in achieving the organization’s desired results.

To learn more about how to create organizational cultures and infrastructures that remain dynamic and viable, join our Accountability Community at www.ozprinciple.com, where you can review the accounts of actual companies.

Accountability Community is a registered trademark of Partners In Leadership Inc.

Despite serious set backs in recent years, Hewlett-Packard’s corporate culture has been emulated for decades because the company’s work environment provides such meaningful work opportunities for its employees. In fact, the company’s commitment to providing employees with meaningful work opportunities is still both legendary and real, returning the company to the “most admired” and “best places to work” lists once again. Of course, being identified as one of the best places to work in the world makes it much easier to attract top talent, which will become an even greater competitive advantage in coming years.

When was the last time you asked your direct reports whether they considered their work meaningful and fulfilling? Do you find your own work meaningful, providing you with the sense of accomplishment you really want? What could you do to provide more meaningful work opportunities to your people while at the same time improving business results? What is the percentage of people in your organization that find their work highly meaningful and fulfilling? Somewhat meaningful? Not meaningful?

To learn more about how to create meaningful work opportunities and environments, join our Accountability Community at www.ozprinciple.com, where you can review the accounts of actual companies.

Accountability Community is a registered trademark of Partners In Leadership Inc.

Living the same standards that you expect from others isn’t always easy. Leaders can often be viewed as exempt, taking greater liberties, too controlling of information, jumping to conclusions without enough information, or justifying personal preferences and biases just because they are leaders. So what’s the problem? Such behavior is often viewed as abuse of power, a double standard, unfair, and hypocritical. Remember, cynicism in organizations rises whenever the gap between what is preached and what is practiced widens.

Dow Jones & Company, famous for its lead publication The Wall Street Journal, provides global business information through newspapers, newswires, magazines, Internet, television, and radio stations. The company has been heralded for its accuracy, integrity and trust for more than 100 years. Underlying the company’s enormous success and prestige is a code of conduct: “All companies profess business integrity. But the impact of our work on the work of others, and on their lives and fortunes, places special responsibilities upon all Dow Jones employees… Every Dow Jones employee holds a position of trust… [which] includes acceptance of individual responsibility for following all legal requirements and ethical business practices, as well as the responsibility to stress proper ethical behavior among colleagues and subordinates… Managers, by virtue of their positions of authority, must be ethical role models… exhibit the highest standards of integrity in all dealings with employees, customers and the world at large… foster a working environment that encourages employees to voice concerns or otherwise seek assistance or counsel if faced with potentially compromising situations, and also support those who raise such concerns.” Hopefully, Dow Jones’ commitment and devotion to ethical behavior is having an impact on the rest of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

To learn more about how to eliminate hypocrisy at all levels in your organization, join our Accountability Community at www.ozprinciple.com, where you can review the accounts of actual companies.

Accountability Community is a registered trademark of Partners In Leadership Inc.

McKesson, a Fortune 20 pharmaceutical and healthcare services company with $50 billion in revenues, clearly recognizes the importance of turning its employees into “Accountable” players. Employees at McKesson (all of them) really are the company’s most valuable asset. How do they do it? The company’s ICARE Shared Principles are: Integrity—doing what’s right; Customer-centered—we succeed when they succeed; Accountability—taking personal responsibility; Respect—treating people with dignity; and Excellence—insisting on quality. McKesson’s values may read like those of other companies, but somewhere along the daily path of corporate life, McKesson’s senior leadership, middle management and employees in general have learned to take personal accountability for adopting and applying the company’s ICARE Shared Principles to help everyone become “A” players. There are no second-class employees here.

Encourage your people to treat all employees as most valuable assets by promoting a Culture of Accountability that respects, reinforces, and rewards the achievement of desired results. Help them take accountability for considering and pursuing multiple career paths within the organization—management and technical, leader and individual contributor, roles that broaden and deepen—to maximize their contributions and value added. Teach them to take greater accountability for achieving both organizational and individual results. To learn more about how to turn all of your employees into “Accountable” players, join our Accountability Community at www.ozprinciple.com, where you can review the accounts of actual companies that have done so.

Regardless of what you think of Greg Smith and his open resignation letter, Goldman Sachs now has the opportunity and challenge to demonstrate that its culture is effective, not destructive; ethical, not lacking in moral fiber; and focused on creating value for its clients, not mismanaging them. In reality, it’s an opportunity and challenge that faces every company, every day. Your organization’s culture is always working, either for you or against you.

Leaders have to take accountability for the organizational cultures they create. When they don’t, their cultures begin working against them and their people and their customers and their shareholders and the larger communities in which they operate. Leaders create cultures and cultures produce results—either desired or undesired. It’s just that simple. The most effective culture is a Culture of Accountability, where people take accountability for thinking and acting in ways that will produce the desired results. Leaders who create and sustain a Culture of Accountability have learned, often the hard way, that either you will manage your culture or your culture will manage you.

To learn more about how to create organizational cultures that are working for you rather than against you, join our Accountability Community at www.ozprinciple.com, where you can review the accounts of actual companies that have created A Culture of Accountability.

Culture of Accountability and Accountability Community are registered trademarks of Partners In Leadership Inc.

Some organizations are creating work environments that prevent conflict between personal and professional lives, offering telecommuting options, family-friendly benefits (such as maternity and paternity leave), liberal vacation allowances, sabbaticals, job sharing, flexible work hours, and stress-reduction workshops. JPMorgan Chase, a leader in the financial services industry, is a case in point. The financial giant has demonstrated a real commitment to work-life balance through a variety of benefits and programs offered to employees at all levels. These include: Back-up Child Care—when an employee’s usual childcare arrangements fall through; Personal Assistant—a concierge service available to all employees that takes an employee’s “to-do” list and gets everything accomplished; Employee Assistance Program—professional, confidential counseling and referral services at no cost; Fitness & Health—discount health club memberships and equipment, and medical services; and Flexible Work—a variety of flexible work arrangements, including job sharing, compressed workweeks, flextime, telecommuting, and remote work. Manager work-life training, maternity and paternity leave, and special mentoring programs continue to make work-life balance a priority at JPMorgan Chase—and the results in terms of employee retention, fulfillment, and productivity are readily apparent.

Ultimately, the most important factor in achieving work-life balance is the communication and creative problem solving between employee and supervisor. When both employees and supervisors recognize the importance of maintaining healthy and productive work-life balances, they can resolve conflicts, make temporary adjustments, and develop long-term solutions. Have you achieved balance between your work and personal life? What else can you do to help yourself and your people achieve a better work-life balance? Do you have open communication with your direct reports and your direct supervisor about work-life balance issues? To learn more about how to take greater accountability for achieving better work-life balances in your team and organization, join our Accountability Community at www.ozprinciple.com.

Accountability Community is a registered trademark of Partners In Leadership Inc.