One of the major “maturity” shifts in an individual – and in an organization – is that of personal responsibility and accountability.
HIRE for this. Reward it. Without it, you end up being a parent playing tug-of-war with your staff.
If you are doing all the work of follow-up and accountability, you are working in Adult/Child mode, not Adult/Adult.
Even worse, this takes away from other work that you could/should be doing. Is your time better spent on your priorities or ensuring that someone has turned in their draft BOD presentations on time? Or one-off follow ups to see if projects are/are not on plan?
- Set expectations – and hire people who ask questions such as “when do you need this by?” or even better, proactively say “I’ll have this to you by Thursday, will that work?” and then follows through
- Verbally reward people who proactively communicate status updates
- Either delegate or automate the checking process
- Don’t constantly rescue! Let someone fail, from time to time, on low risk areas that have a social (not business) stigma
- Name what is going on – set and reinforce your expectations about behavior
Adult/Adult creates a culture of accountability and responsibility that will serve the organization’s growth in many ways.