Chapter 8 is “Be Accountable.”
The chapter begins with a story of Pete, a cofounder and CEO of InstaViser and also a member of the 2000 and 2004 Olympic U.S. Men’s eight rowing team. He knows about winning and accountability. In his sport the team members are literally in the same boat.
Pete told the authors about the 2000 Olympics. The team was undefeated during the Olympic cycle leading up to the games. They were heavy favorites to win the gold, but they finished 5th. No medal at all. Some members of the team would be too old to compete in 2004. It was a dreadful experience for them.
Looking ahead to the 2004 Olympics in Athens, some of the athletes decided not to compete. Some were married and had kids. Others wanted to avoid going through another four years with the possibility of repeating an awful experience. Pete said a few of them decided to stick with it though. They knew they needed to band together in order to be leaders for the upcoming team members. Three members of the 2000 team competed in the eights in 2004. During the months leading up to the games there was a lot of peer accountability among the three veterans. The younger members grew to rely on the leadership provided by the three, who would rotate leadership based solely on the organic need. They didn’t structure anything. They just did what needed to be done.
The veterans were on a mission to make sure they didn’t repeat the mistakes of Sydney. The goal was to win gold. In 2004 the U.S. men’s eight won gold decisively largely because they had embraced a culture of accountability.
What does accountability really mean?
It means different things to different people. There’s an emotional component of how people feel when being held accountable.
In early Greek civilization citizens would cast a vote by stepping on a stone; that’s how they’d account for themselves and demonstrate where they stood. Accountability doesn’t tend to be a favorite word because somewhere along the way it got a bad rap. People can think of it as punishment or mean spirited.
The authors discovered some things when they looked at the education system in Finland. Ranking among the very top in the world in reading, science and math, Finland’s education system emphasizes investment in professional development of teachers. The country spends very little money or time on measuring learning outcomes through standardized testing. They’ve created a culture where teachers accept responsibility for teaching their students. And they’re given the freedom to do it based on the needs of the individual school and students.
There is no word for accountability in the Finnish language. Instead, accountability has been described as “something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted.” So it appears to have such a negative connotation that the language lacks any word to really describe it.
One CEO in a peer advisory group said this about accountability to his fellow members:
Do you realize that this is one of the few places where we can go to get support that comes across as unconditional love, unvarnished, with no other strings attached? There are few places where we can go in life where somebody doesn’t have an agenda, doesn’t want something from us. This is one of the few places where we can show up and hold one another accountable to keep that level of behavior in front of us at all times.
What CEO needs more accountability?
The authors say they have talked with enough CEOs through the years who declare they already have enough people to whom they feel accountable professionally. But, as the authors point out, there is an accountability dilemma. Former Vistage CEO Rafael Pastor created a CEO accountability model where the CEO is at the center. On top is the board. To one side are peers.