The Challenge
Organizations need to create a business environment and culture where people are empowered to think for themselves, develop their own solutions, present solutions to management and work together to implement them. Giving them the right skills and tools becomes the first step in their owning the solutions and accepting accountability for their implementation.
The Core Problem: “The Dump and Run”
Within the business culture of many organizations, front line employees identify problems and dump them on the manager’s desk. Managers that tolerate this behavior are expected to come up with the solutions. After managers create and begin implementing solutions, the front line argues about why the resolutions will not work. Employees will state, “I told my manager about the problems and they haven’t fixed them”. In this case, employees are holding managers accountable for employee problems.
How do managers eliminate the “dump and run”? How does an organization modify the business culture so front line employees own their problems? What is the best way to hold them accountable to creating and implementing their own solutions?
The GRI For Leaders Workshop Helps Managers Foster a Culture of Ownership & Accountability
Empowering and then holding employees accountable are considered key solutions to some of today’s greatest business challenges. It is unrealistic, however, for managers to expect employees to be empowered and accountable to results - if employees do not have the proper skills and tools to carry out assignments.
In GRI For Leaders workshops, our instruction employs real-life situations to establish a strategy for settling the “ownership” debate. Who owns what and who is responsible to recommend solutions and implement them? We establish a process where the people closest to the problems do the work to eliminate the problems. They identify them, conduct the root cause analysis, propose solutions and establish metrics to track progress. This formula creates ownership and accountability at the front line level to implement action plans and stick with them through their successful completion.
