Another View On Co-Accountability?

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

2014-11-07

Last week, one of the members of my CEO group sent this Facebook post to the group. And, much like the comments on the actual post, there was a mix of “isn’t this cool?” to the cynical, “what if the person has never done anything positive?”

The discussion caused me to pause. Vistage speaker, Michel Allosso, talks about giving a person TSP: Truthful, Specific, Positive feedback. Do it enough, he says, to earn the right to give constructive feedback. While Vistage Speaker, Balaji Krishnamurthy, teaches us co-accountability: The key to a successful organization is when members of our team have expectations of each other and hold each other accountable for meeting them.

What this Facebook post says to me is, perhaps the answer is to combine the two. I wonder if in the story I told last week, the reason Southwest Airlines has both a collegial and a co-accountable culture is because they combine both TSP and co-accountability…

  • Imagine what would happen in your organization if you had both?
  • What one action step might you take today to begin a journey down this path?

Elisa K. Spain

 

 

Can Co-Accountability Happen In Your Culture?

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

 

In Vistage, and amongst leaders in general, we talk a lot about accountability. We use terms like “we need to hold them accountable”, or “we need to hold ourselves accountable”.

One of our speakers, Balaji Krishnamurthy, often talks instead about co-accountability and how this practice is directly tied to producing results. The concept is simple. Members of a team, an organization, or even a Vistage group, are accountable to each other, to respect the values and agreements they have with each other. And, they call each other out for non-compliance. In short, the members of the team, take full responsibility for governance.

The concept is simple, everyone nods their head in agreement and… the execution is hard.

This co-accountability can happen in two ways:

  • Balaji says the most effective way is in the moment, in the meeting.
  • Option 2 is for members of the team to have a conversation outside the meeting, again, soon after the event.

Yikes, some say, ….

  • Is anyone really going to step up and call someone out in a meeting?
  • Isn’t it the leader’s responsibility to deal with issues?
  • Is this a practice that only works in certain types of cultures?

And, in a co-accountable culture, what is the leader’s role?

  • Is it to open up space for the feedback?
  • Is it to give the feedback first?
  • Is it to encourage those who are willing to speak up and ensure positive consequences for taking this risk?

Finally, can this work in all cultures?

I will leave you with a story I heard recently from a friend about how this works at Southwest Airlines, an organization where results are legendary in a collegial culture that is also legendary.

My friend who told me this story is retired from a 20+ year career in the airline industry. At the time, she was an airport manager for one of the large airlines. Someone on her team discovered and reported to her that a Southwest employee was using, and reusing, a meal voucher for this large airline. My friend handled it the normal way, she reported it to the Southwest manager. A few days later, a couple of the employees from Southwest, not the manager, came over to my friend and said “We heard about what happened with the meal voucher. We want you to know this is not acceptable behavior for a Southwest employee. We have dealt with the situation and we sincerely apologize. You can rest assured it will not happen again and the money will be repaid”. Wow, my friend said, I can’t imagine this happening at any other airline, not then, not now.

I wonder, what results we would see if each of us as leaders began to foster co-accountability in a manner consistent with the other tenets of our culture.

Elisa K. Spain

 

Leadership Quote: Yesterday's Home Runs…

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

 

This month’s leadership quote:

“Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games”

-Babe Ruth

Not only don’t yesterday’s home runs win today’s games, the way we got to yesterday’s home run may not work today. While the past can be our teacher, it can also delude us. When we have been successful in the past, we often think that if we repeat what led to that success, we will have those same results, that same home run, again.

Sometimes it works.

More often, the players and leaders who achieve multiple home runs do so by pausing, noticing what is different and adjusting accordingly. And… they keep moving forward; expecting to work just as hard to get the next home run as they did to get the last one.

 

Elisa K. Spain

Vistage CEO Confidence Index: Optimism At A 2-Year High in Q3 2014

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

 

q3 (3)The quarterly Vistage Confidence Index is now available.

Confidence among CEOs reached its highest level in two years, finally achieving a lift-off from its favorable holding pattern in the last three quarters. The Vistage CEO Confidence Index was 103.4 in the 3rd quarter 2014 survey, up from 101.0 in the 2nd quarter and 97.8 in last year’s 3rd quarter, and the highest level since 105.1 was recorded in the 1st quarter of 2012. There is no greater indication of confidence in future prospects than a firm’s willingness to increase their fixed investment spending and to expand their workforce. On both counts, firms reported the most expansive plans since 2006.

Below are some key highlights from the Q3 2014 Vistage CEO Confidence Index (all members surveyed):

  • 75% of CEOs anticipated revenue gains over the next 12 months. Only 4% anticipated declines in their revenues, the lowest ever recorded.
  • 52% of CEOs reported an improving economy, up from 50% one quarter ago and 46% one year ago.
  • 59% of CEOs anticipated increased profits in the next year, just above last quarter’s 56% and above last year’s 54%.
  • 58% of CEOs planned to increased their workforce, while just 4% planned reductions.

Elisa K. Spain

Leadership Quote: Finding Your Peer Group

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

This month’s leadership quote:

“Your peer group are people with similar dreams, goals and worldviews. They are people who will push you in exchange for being pushed, who will raise the bar and tell you the truth.  They’re not in your business, but they’re in your shoes.  Finding a peer group and working with them, intentionally and on a regular schedule, might be the single biggest boost your career can experience.”

-Seth Godin

 Thank you Seth for reminding us why 18,000 CEO’s and executives belong to Vistage and why these same Vistage member companies are better run and grow their revenues, on average, at more than twice the percentage growth rate after joining.

Elisa K. Spain

Leadership Quote: Success Or Significance?

by Elisa Spain2 Comments

Opt 4 Aug 31

This month’s leadership quote:

“Success is when you add value to yourself.  Significance is when you add value to others”

-John Maxwell

I have heard it said, that the time to “give back” is in the later phase of our lives. This quote is a reminder that giving back is really a lifelong habit; a habit of giving. As I think about people who have made an impact on me and on our society, they are remembered because of the value they added. It’s one thing to build a successful enterprise or career and another to achieve significance.

Which do you want?

Elisa K. Spain

If You Don't Watch the Numbers, You Don't Have Governance

by Elisa Spain1 Comment

Opt 4 Aug 3

Publicly held  U.S. company governance dictates the requirements for financial reporting and many of these companies give “guidance” as frequently as quarterly. While this approach is sometime criticized as being short-term focused, the important upside is all stakeholders know, at any given time, how the company is performing and can respond accordingly.

Privately held companies, on the other hand, have a choice. There aren’t any governance mandates.

  • They can choose to focus on the numbers, or not
  • They can choose to report performance to all stakeholders, or not, and
  • They can choose to forecast and adjust accordingly or not

Owners sometimes question the need for forecasts and state that sales focus is primary.  After all they say, isn’t it all about growth, i.e. how much we sell this year compared to last year?

While most awards for privately held companies focus on top line (Inc. 500/5000, Crain’s Fast Fifty, etc.),  in my experience the businesses that follow the following five tenets, are the ones that achieve sustainable growth.  And for my Vistage CEO’s it is the reason members voluntarily report their financials quarterly, are accountable to each other for providing guidance, and adjust their actions accordingly.

Five Truths of Profitable GrowthTM

  • If you don’t know how you make money, you won’t make money.
  • If you don’t set goals for wealth creation, you won’t accumulate wealth.
  • Operating budgets and capital budgets are not the same; if you use debt to finance operating expense rather than for growth, you will not grow.
  • Top line growth does not equal bottom line growth.
  • Without a culture of accountability and measurement, you will underperform.

Elisa K. Spain

Leadership Quote: Vision Without Action

Leadership Quote: Vision Without Action

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Opt 8 July 27

This month’s leadership quote:

“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.”

-Joel A. Barker

When leaders focus solely on vision and strategy and not on action, put simply, nothing gets done. Successful leaders know that a vision is a destination that their team can rally around. They also know that while the vision is their job, it is a team effort to develop a strategy for getting there.

At the same time, once the vision and strategy are defined, results only happen with implementation. And only succeed with the monitoring and evaluation that follows.

In my experience, leaders who see their only job as generating the big ideas and abdicate their leadership role when it comes to execution are dreaming.

At the same time, action without vision just passes the time. Vision gives us and our teams direction; it enables us to make choices and to focus. Without it, we are only left with activities that may or may not lead to results.

Bring it all together, Vision with action can change the world.

Elisa K. Spain

In Good Governance, When Does Culture Come Ahead Of Revenue?

In Good Governance, When Does Culture Come Ahead Of Revenue?

by Elisa Spain1 Comment

Opt 4 July 20

A few weeks ago in my blog about Leading Isn’t Easy, I talked about the hard choices we sometimes must make as leaders. Especially those choices where neither outcome is a good one.

As we continue this series on Governance Design, I am reminded of my 2014 theme for my Vistage groups, “All That Matters Is Culture”.

For this reason, once we define our business objective, for me the most important question is, “What are the cultural implications of our goals?”. If we are intentional about our culture, and ruthless about enforcing it, everything else will follow. And it isn’t easy.

Sometimes we have high performing employees who don’t fit the culture. So hard, to say goodbye to someone who is getting the job done, sometimes, doing it better than anyone else, brings in the big deals but just doesn’t fit. She may be a bully, or he may cut corners or spread negative energy.

When it is an employee, we can often rationalize to ourselves that the performance of the team will improve when the person who doesn’t fit is gone. The net result will be higher performance overall.

But, what if it is a customer who doesn’t fit the culture? Here we are talking a real dollar impact if we separate. This brings us back to Leading Isn’t Easy.

Recently, I had to make this hard decision. It became clear to me that a long time member of one of my groups didn’t fit the core values of the group. This member contributed in many positive ways and yet, I knew that to take the group to the next level, it was time for this member to go. After a few sleepless nights, we had the Fierce Conversation, and I have already begun to see the change. What I realized was, to achieve the business objectives and the long term growth, the temporary dip in revenue was worth it.

 

Elisa K. Spain

Is Governance Leadership?

Is Governance Leadership?

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Opt 3 July 13

This week begins a new series on the topic of governance in growing businesses.

Governance is not a term typically used by business owners and business leaders. Rather, we hear this term most often in the context of corporate boards, both public and private.

Yet, Wikipedia defines corporate governance as, “the system of structures, rights, duties, and obligations by which corporations are directed and controlled.

  • Governance provides the structure through which corporations set and pursue their objectives, while reflecting the context of the social, regulatory and market environment.
  • Governance is a mechanism for monitoring the actions, policies and decisions of corporations in alignment with the interests among the stakeholders.”

In short, governance is the DIME method that I have talked about previously. Design, Implement, Monitor and Evaluate.

Beginning with “D – Design”.  In my experience, businesses initially develop without much regard to design. And as Vistage speaker Jim Alampi reminds us, while bootstrapping works up to a point, as businesses reach critical milestones of growth, what we were doing up to now, doesn’t work anymore. At this point it is time to pause and ask two sets of questions:

First, the 5 key internally focused questions:

  1. What are our business objectives?
  2. What are the cultural implications of these goals?
  3. What are the financial implications of these goals, revenue, expense, cash and capital needs?
  4. What structure and infrastructure, i.e. key functions and processes are needed to achieve our objectives?
  5. Who on our team is qualified to fill the key roles? Who may not fit? Who will we add?

And, equally important are the 5 key externally focused questions:

  1. What is happening in our industry? Competition, innovation, regulation?
  2. What is happening amongst our customers? Growth, consolidation, innovation?
  3. What are the gaps that provide opportunities for us?
  4. What are the threats to our continued growth?
  5. What diversification opportunities exist?

 

Elisa K. Spain