Three Kinds of People and Their Typical Distribution

Number Of Employees

Sinners Save-ables Saints

Worse Kind of performer Better

Kind of people Accountable? To create accountability
Saints Yes Protect them
Sinners No Take them out of the system
Save-ables Depends Take excuses out of the system
3 Hardwired Frailties of Save-ables
Three Conditions of Accountability

Communicating
clear and
credible
expectations

The Three Conditions

of
Leading Accountability Creating
conversations compelling
grounded in consequences
empirical
reality
Strategy 1

Communicating
Clear and
Credible
Expectations
Strategies

• Equip your people for “moments of truth and tradeoff”

• Invest valuable, grueling minutes to ensure role clarity
• Use “ commander’s intent” to promote ownership, stretch people,
and align them with your business strategy
• Compete for attention
• Boost the credibility of your high expectations
Equip your people for “moments of truth and
tradeoff”

• Bright Lines and Well – Defined Boundaries, Enforced Consistently

• Practical Rules of Thumb
• Realistic, Scenario – Based Discussions
Six Questions to help navigate through
Moments of Truth & Tradeoff
1. Which of your values should guide your decisions and actions in a
dilemma / difficult / unforeseen situation?
2. Are there unwritten rules or precedents in your culture that would
suggest how to handle this situation or one like it? If so, are those
unwritten rules or precedents consistent with our values?
3. Would you be likely to seek input from others when deciding how
to act? If so, whom would you engage? How would you engage
them? What would you say?
4. Would your values, and the way we apply them, differentiate us in
a situation like this? In other words, would you expect us to handle
this situation differently than would a competitor?
5. What positive consequences, if any would you expect to encounter
as a result of making a values – driven decision in this situation?
6. What negative consequences, if any, would you expect to
encounter as a result of making a values – driven decision in this
situation? How would you manage them?
Strategies

• Equip your people for “moments of truth and tradeoff”

• Invest valuable, grueling minutes to ensure role clarity
Invest valuable, grueling minutes to ensure
role clarity

• Assume that there’s confusion until there’s proof that there isn’t
• Run the West Coast Offense
• RACI : R – Responsible, A – Accountable, C – Consulted, I - Informed
• Bodhisattvan Enlightenment
• Responsibility chains
• Get the right people in the room, be patient, and listen
West Coast Offense
 RACI
Functional Roles
Leader- Project Project Project Work Ops Assoc Coord
ship Sponsor Dir Mgr Stream Specia
team Lead -list
Indentify I AC R
potential
vendors
Assess I C RA
vendors
Decisions/ Send RFPs I A
Functions Evaluate I AC R
RFPs
Write I I
contract
Review R AC R
contract
Approve I RA C
contract
Implement I I AC
contract
Text RACI
Project Sponsor
His/her mission is to
He/she has yes/no decision accountability
for
He/she is responsible for
We should consult him/her before/on
We should inform him/her of
• Provide resources and decisions to drive
the initiative to implementation
• Any changes to the budget that exceed
spending authority or are out of plan
• Determining the project lead
• Additional external or consulting staffing
resources for the work streams
• Delivering updates to the executive team
• Providing feedback about the system,
people, budget, etc
• Providing resources
• Removing obstacles
• Making technology and design decisions
• Overall questions where we want advice
and counsel
• Major project milestones
• Spending decisions that are within project
authority but are otherwise unusual
Bodhisattvan Enlightenment
“ We’re all going to suffer until we all get enlightenment”
• Interdependencies – vertical, horizontal, process
Two – fold path
 Responsibility Chaining : Example
Problem :
Bad news isn’t communicated upward

• Take managers seriously when they say, “ We really know what the
risks are.”
• Participate in sounding board sessions.
• Coach each other, where and how, and where in the chain of command.

Who needs to
• Explain and clarify expectations from senior leadership to employees. do what at
• Put messages into context. each
• Reward and recognize those who demonstrate the courage to share level to take
• “bad news” in a timely fashion. excuses out
of the system?
• Explicitly communicate expectations.
• Reward and recognize those who demonstrate the courage to share
• “bad news” in a timely fashion.
• Sponsor creation of new systems/processes to make it easier to
• communicate “ bad news” upward.
“Whole System” thinking
Together, start seeing what is important

Cross – functional relationships

Mutual
trust
communication
Agreeing
to disagree
Strategies

• Equip your people for “moments of truth and tradeoff”

• Invest valuable, grueling minutes to ensure role clarity
• Use “ commander’s intent” to promote ownership, stretch people,
and align them with your business strategy
“Never tell people how to
do things.
Just tell them what to do
and they will surprise you
with their ingenuity.”

- Gen George S Patton

Use Commander’s Intent (CI)

“ CI is a crisp, plain – talk statement that appears at the top of every

order, specifying the end – state of an operation”

“ Begin with the end in mind”

- Stephen Covey

• CI is a way of communicating expectations

Stretching Your People & Alignment

• Communicate strategic expectations – calibrate your CI to the

capabilities of your team
• Your expression of CI must be :
• Simple enough….
• Broad enough….
• Aligned with….

• What you’re saying is :

“ I care about what you’re doing to get us closer to the targeted end –
state.”
Example

• A large MNC’s communication of it’s strategy to its employees…

We will :
• Focus on investment spending
• Promote a cost – saving culture
• Routinely review our portfolio
• Grow our international business
• Revise the compensation system

• “Don’t hide or obfuscate what you want to say…Just say it !”

Strategies

• Equip your people for “moments of truth and tradeoff”

• Invest valuable, grueling minutes to ensure role clarity
• Use “ commander’s intent” to promote ownership, stretch people,
and align them with your business strategy
• Compete for attention
Compete for attention

Are people actually paying attention to what you’re communicating?

That’s something not to be taken for granted !

• Problem of “ Rational Ignorance”

Compete for attention
• Rationalize Supply against Demand – focus Leadership
Communication on the actual information demands in the system ;
tailor your message to the audience

• Go Organic – no new acronyms, jargon, esoteric or unfamiliar and

aspirational language, splash and gloss ; use communication that is :
• Low – hype
• High substance
• Organic

• Here Today, Here Tomorrow – keep the “main thing” the “ main
thing” ; choice of words and the consistency with which you use
them
• Change thinking from “can’t, what if, how many,” etc, to finding
answers and solutions
Strategies

• Equip your people for “moments of truth and tradeoff”

• Invest valuable, grueling minutes to ensure role clarity
• Use “ commander’s intent” to promote ownership, stretch people,
and align them with your business strategy
• Compete for attention
• Boost the credibility of your high expectations
Boost the credibility of your high
expectations

Useful Behavioral Insights :

• Employees perceive expectations for high performance to be more
credible when they come from a leader they perceive to be “ real”
and “ likeable”
• We most prefer to say ‘yes’ to the requests of someone we know and
like
• We are more favorable to those we have had contact with
• We like people who are similar to us , whether the similarity is in the
area of opinions, personality traits, background, or lifestyle
Boost the credibility of your high
expectations
• The medium is the message
• Promote openness and leadership accessibility – break down barriers
and establish connections with employees
• It is more credible to be authentically bad than inauthentically good
• Have “real” relationships
Summary – Strategy 1: Communicating Clear
and Credible Expectations
• Equip your people for “moments of truth and tradeoff”
• Invest valuable, grueling minutes to ensure role clarity
• Use “ commander’s intent” to promote ownership, stretch people,
and align them with your business strategy
• Compete for attention
• Boost the credibility of your high expectations
Strategy 2

Creating
Compelling
Consequences
 Strategies
• Reward what you want to see more of…and stop tolerating what you
don’t
• Use the other f - word to tap hidden sources of motivation
• Wield your biggest stick : the power to take things away
• When you have no authority, use increased confidence and reduced
anxiety as your consequence currency
Points to ponder

• If you want your people to do some particular thing, that’s the thing
you’d better reward
• Organizations want long – term performance, however they reward
employees who achieve quarterly targets. So what they get,
predictably, is short – term thinking and number gaming.
• Or they want team work and cooperation but reward only individual
goal attainment, leading, predictably, to unproductive competition
• If your reward system is not “ getting you what you want”, don’t
blame your employees; blame your reward system. Leaders are
responsible for the dysfunctional behaviors that so bother them.
Bad behavior

• Sometimes you’ve got to take unpleasant action to confront bad

behavior – and it’s a mistake to delay it or rationalize it away
• It’s not meaningful to say that you’re going to stop tolerating bad
behavior among those who lack the capability to give you the good
behavior you want to see instead – because it won’t stop the sinning
Reward what you want to see more of…and
stop tolerating what you don’t
• Eliminate “ rewards” that aren’t…
• The Good Citizen Award
• The Treadmill Award
• The Bali Punch
• Reward “ Development Opportunity” Vs “ Just More Work”
 Strategies
• Reward what you want to see more of…and stop tolerating what you
don’t
• Use the other f - word to tap hidden sources of motivation
Use the other f - word to tap hidden sources
of motivation

Leadership Insight…

• Your greatest source of power is your ability to change how people

feel

• As a leader, you have enormous capacity to do just that among the

people on whom you depend for high accountability and
performance
Use the other f - word to tap hidden sources
of motivation

Concept of Utility
• Utility refers to the value that individuals gain from buying /
possessing a good or an experience. We make choices, according to
the logic of economics, that we think will maximize our utility.
• Most of the time we don’t actually experience utility based on
calculations about objective criteria of what we should value. Rather
we experience utility based on how our economic choices actually
make us feel.
- Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize for Economics, 2002
• You pick an expensive car over a more “rational” option- that is, a
cheaper car that works just as well and gets better mileage – because
the way it makes you feel
You have more “Consequence Capital” than
you think
• Take a minute and come up with a list of the consequences ( Both
positive and negative) you can use to motivate people to do what you
want them to do
• What does your list look like ?
• Take another minute, think about what Daniel Kahneman said, and
add to your list
• Now what does your list look like?
You have more “Consequence Capital” than
you think
• Acceptance
• Public recognition/credit
• Responsiveness to their needs/requests
• Time and attention
• Inclusion in activities, decisions, etc
• Privileged information
• Familiarity – knowing their name and something about them
• Acknowledgement – “Hi,” eye contact
• Consultation – seek their feedback and advice
• Buzz – third party compliments, creating positive folklore
• Partnering with them
You have more “Consequence Capital” than
you think
• Staying out of their way
• Introductions
• Visibility – upward and across the organizations, to clients, etc
• Conveniences
• Free time
• Freedom to fail/ controlled failure – for high performance
• Absolution – past mistakes forgotten
• New experiences
Use the other f - word to tap hidden sources
of motivation
• Emotional algorithms : Five Principles for the f – word economy…
1. You can’t measure the utility of a consequence – its effective
value – in absolute terms : it’s all relative to expectations and
social comparison
2. People are more sensitive to losses than gains
3. Scarcity matters
4. Timing matters, so bring consequences closer
5. Everybody’s different
• Opportunity in a crisis
Emotional algorithms : Five Principles for the
f – word economy
1st Principle : Measuring the utility of a consequence ( value) – isn’t
absolute – it’s relative to expectations and social comparison
• How does something (say a reward) compare with what the recipient
expects?
• What are other people getting?
• What do I really have?

2nd Principle : Sensitivity to losses and gains

• The disutility of giving up on an object is greater than the utility
associated with acquiring it by a factor of 2 to 2.5
• The upside
Emotional algorithms : Five Principles for
the f – word economy
3rd Principle : Scarcity Matters
• Opportunities seem more valuable to us when their availability is
limited
• What’s known to be most scarce – your time and attention – are
enormously valuable currencies
• Leaders need to think about where they’re spending their time, and
what message they’re sending to the rest of the organization

4th Principle : Timing matters, so bring consequences closer

• Practical application for leaders :
• Timeliness
• Specificity
• Personal – quick email or handshake
Emotional algorithms : Five Principles for
the f – word economy
5th Principle : Everybody’s different.
• Because everyone’s emotional make up is different, the utility or
motivating value of any consequence is in the eye of the beholder
• You’ve got to make the effort to know your people and to understand
what motivated them. Each person does what they do for their own
reasons, not for yours
Opportunity in Crisis

• In a crisis, channel peoples anxiety and uncertainty into believing in

something
• Give them something meaningful to do
• This leads to
• Improved morale
• Greater trust
• Sense of loyalty
• Builds ownership
• Creates camaraderie
• Heightened performance
 Strategies
• Reward what you want to see more of…and stop tolerating what you
don’t
• Use the other f - word to tap hidden sources of motivation
• Wield your biggest stick : the power to take things away
Wield your biggest stick : the power to take
things away
• Team trust
• Soft shaming
• Competition
• Confrontation therapy
• Commitment contracts

It’s about the cost, stupid !

….Increase the cost of failure !!
 Strategies
• Reward what you want to see more of…and stop tolerating what you
don’t
• Use the other f - word to tap hidden sources of motivation
• Wield your biggest stick : the power to take things away
• When you have no authority, use increased confidence and reduced
anxiety as your consequence currency
When you have no authority, use increased
confidence and reduced anxiety as your
consequence currency
• Confidence comes from relationships – Coaching approach

• Speak their language – build rapport, use their conversational language

• Always with, never to – speak with and for, never to; similarly, do things
with and for, never to; perceptual positions

• Take the long view – give away your best ideas to the people who have
the credibility to carry them
When you have no authority, use increased
confidence and reduced anxiety as your
consequence currency
• In a crisis, show you care….ask yourself four questions :

• Will those who matter to us expect us to do or say something now?

• Will silence be seen as indifference to the harm the crisis is causing?
• Are others speaking about us, shaping the perception about us
among those who matter to us? Will they soon?
• If we wait, will we lose the ability to determine the outcome?
When you have no authority, use increased
confidence and reduced anxiety as your
consequence currency
• Don’t kill yourself for A1
• Social Scientists Theory : “Expectancy Violation Theory”
• It’s all about risk management
• Key takeaways:
• Avoid making commitments that will require you and/ or your
team to kill yourself just to earn a “0” as a best case scenario ( if
you’re successful in pulling off heroics)
• At a minimum, make sure that you are set up to consistently and
predictably earn “0s”( if not better)
• Consistently look for ways to deliver an experience that violates
expectations in a positive way. It never hurts to have some +1s in
the bank !
 Strategies
• Reward what you want to see more of…and stop tolerating what you
don’t
• Use the other f - word to tap hidden sources of motivation
• Wield your biggest stick : the power to take things away
• When you have no authority, use increased confidence and reduced
anxiety as your consequence currency
Strategy 3

Leading
conversations
grounded in
empirical reality
Insights

• Our brains use two operating systems to guide the choices we make

CHOICES

INTUITION REASON

Fast Slower
Automatic Serial
Effortless Effortful
Associative Deliberately controlled
Emotionally charged
Relatively flexible
Governed by habit
Potentially
Difficult to control or
rule - governed
modify

IMPRESSIONS JUDGMENTS
Insights

“Most of our choices, including the decisions we make when the stakes
are high, flow from intuition rather than reasoning”
- Daniel Kahneman
• The conscious brain often erroneously interprets behaviour that
emerges from automatic, affective processes as the outcome of
cognitive deliberations
• Our intuition system, which runs on “emotionally charged”
impressions, consistently favours what we wish to be true over facts
known to be true because the former just feels better
• Virtues and limitations of “thin slicing” and the “ power of not
thinking”
Strategies

• Whet the appetite for truth

• Prevent excuses before they happen
• Banish the fantasies and fetishes that lead to finger-pointing
• Treat mistakes as intellectual capital and give negative feedback that
doesn’t make people feel threatened
Whet the appetite for truth

• What you need to know but probably don’t

• If trust falls but you don’t measure it, does it make a sound?
• Gap analysis: What we say Vs What we do
Strategies

• Whet the appetite for truth

• Prevent excuses before they happen
Prevent excuses before they happen
Insights
• Optimism Bias.
• The term refers to our astounding tendency to overestimate the
likelihood that good things will happen to us and to
underestimate the probabilities of bad outcomes
• Can lead to ignoring risks and committing yourself and your team
to unsound choices and actions
• Harvard Case Study
• Significant portion of Harvard’s AOP funded from endowments
• Harvard borrowed above endowment value to place additional
bets as part of it’s investment strategy
• 2008 – had to unload $ 2 bn in stock at fire sale prices to cover the
gamble
• Overall loss - $11 bn !
• Optimism bias evident….through response to questions raised
during investment
Prevent excuses before they happen

• Good old – fashioned debate

• Sounding board : “ Do we really, really want to initiate this project?”
• Example – evaluating project proposals
• Business gains
• Business risks
• Personal advantages
• Personal disadvantages
• Every proposer must answer questions such as :
• What would it cost me personally to undertake this project?
• What must I stop doing in order to have the time to do this?
• What else would I do if I didn’t take up this project?
Prevent excuses before they happen

• Going in eyes wide open with Force – Field Analysis

• What’s working against our success?
• What’s working in our favour?
• Clear Critical Pathways
• Crystal Ball
• Tool for validating confidence and confronting stuff people may
not know ( or may be pretending not to know)
• Validates operating assumptions
• Ensures diversity of perspective
• When a project’s in progress, ask forward facing questions
Strategies

• Whet the appetite for truth

• Prevent excuses before they happen
• Banish the fantasies and fetishes that lead to finger-pointing
Banish the fantasies and fetishes that lead to
finger-pointing

• Good crop, bad crop

• Arsonist firefighter
• The martyr
• Sunk cost fallacy
Strategies

• Whet the appetite for truth

• Prevent excuses before they happen
• Banish the fantasies and fetishes that lead to finger-pointing
• Treat mistakes as intellectual capital and give negative feedback that
doesn’t make people feel threatened
Treat mistakes as intellectual capital and give
negative feedback that doesn’t make people feel
threatened

Insights
• The brain’s Negativity Bias
• Performance feedback ratio, +v to –ve, 5:1
• Method of “reappraisal” by reframing
Treat mistakes as intellectual capital and give
negative feedback that doesn’t make people
feel threatened
Strategies to give negative feedback:
• Hardcore about hiring
• Appeal to pride and perspective
• Empathize
• Empty the boat
• Don’t ask who, ask why
• Make it regular
• Generously interpret motives
• Lead by example
Strategies

• Whet the appetite for truth

• Prevent excuses before they happen
• Banish the fantasies and fetishes that lead to finger-pointing
• Treat mistakes as intellectual capital and give negative feedback that
doesn’t make people feel threatened