In business today, one of the most important parts of a functional and successful business stems from their ability to be accountable. When nobody is willing to accept the blame for their mistakes, then it can become quite hard for anyone to ever see themselves as any different. Then, other people get blamed for the failure – usually someone not in the room – and it becomes very hard for any genuine and progressive change to take place. With that in mind, then, it’s vital that you can grow to understand and appreciate why any business that performs well does so because it makes people accountable for their actions.
Failure Matters Once Again
Today, in many businesses, a culture of failure and blaming others is very much prevalent. Many people spend a lot of their time running around finding unique ways to avoid the sack. When you just avoid taking any responsibility for issues that you may have caused, indirectly or otherwise, it becomes very easy to just look the other way. In a business that performs, though, such derelictions are likely to see you struggle to stay in the role for any longer than a short period of time. The best thing that you can do, then, is to start paying attention to the direction of the business – and see who is steering that direction.
If the business is going in the wrong direction, then you need to look to confront those who are steering it in the wrong direction. It’s vital that you deal with it more often than not, ensuring that you can start to move away from a culture of failure. If a business is performing poorly and those at the top are doing nothing to halt the decline, then it might be worth asking questions as to why that is – and what can be done about it to try and correct these issues.
With that in mind, then, you should look try and better understand the importance of accountability. Any team that wants to take the business further should look build a greater level of correspondence in the business. If there are more regular discussion and meetings about what has taken place so far, then it is far more likely that a range of solutions can be derived and the implemented.
A business needs to find the best way of making accountability become part of their culture. The best way to do this is to incentivize success, but also to incentivize honesty. If someone makes a mistake, you need to ensure that the company culture does not have them fearing for their job.
People will only put their heads up above the parapet if they believe that they can survive the onslaught to come. If you are working with someone who feels uncomfortable dealing with you, or who fails to take responsibility when confronted, it might be worth considering making sure they feel like they are in a space that allows them to talk.
Failure isn’t the problem – it’s not admitting to failure that becomes the major issue. If your business desires success, then you need to find a means of changing an atmosphere that makes failure seem like a firing.