How do you hold your team accountable when the accountabilities are not clear? The short answer is that you don’t.
The EOS Accountability Chart is the best tool for simplifying and communicating who is ultimately responsible for each element of the business. It makes it clear who is accountable, removes any overlaps, and sets the team facing the future – not the past. If you want to truly hold each other accountable, you need to have the clarity the Accountability Chart provides.
The Accountability Chart is a little different from the typical organizational chart – instead of organizing by job title and reporting lines, it focuses solely on the Accountabilities – who takes care of each element in the business.
Building the Accountability Chart
To build an accountability chart, you start with the leadership team – including the Visionary, Integrator, and any other key functions in your business (typically Sales/Marketing, Finance/Admin, Operations). For each role on the accountability chart, you detail the 3-7 key responsibilities for that role that make up 80% of the role. For most of the leadership team, the first responsibility is usually LMA – Lead, Manage, Accountable – taking care of your direct reports and helping them succeed.
Building the Leadership team accountability chart is a great first step, but there is one more important consideration here – you should build the accountability chart without any names. Envision how the company should look over the next 6-12 months, and build the Accountability Chart that way, regardless of who is in each role today. This reframing helps shift the perspective of the team and can unlock the next step of the business, even though it might be difficult to shift the accountabilities of the team members.
When building the list of responsibilities for each role, you may also find that there is simply too much work for some roles – consider the use of the Delegate and Elevate tool in those situations to better understand what work could and should be delegated.
Assigning Names to Roles
Once you have your Accountability Chart drafted and the team is aligned, start discussing the names for who is the best fit for each seat. There will likely be some adjustments and compromise here, often due to the changes the Accountability Chart provides. There may not be an immediate fit for some of the team, but keep in mind that the Accountability Chart is an evolving document – it will change to suit the needs of the business.
Keep in mind that a small business may have one person sitting in multiple roles – while this isn’t always pleasant, it is sometimes necessary for smaller businesses or in times of transition.
What comes next?
After the leadership team, you can expand the Accountability Chart for the rest of the organization. Continuing this process may cause accountability changes for the leadership team as well. Many businesses have overlapping accountabilities between departments for one reason or another. For example, a strong individual contributor takes on additional responsibilities outside of their department. But the Accountability Chart highlights those areas – and that they may not be the structure for the entire company, but rather an exception that creates confusion on the path forward.
Ultimately, the Accountability Chart is a powerful tool that can bring the next level of clarity to your organization. Once you have roles clearly defined with responsibilities, you can use the People Analyzer to regularly check if you have the right people in the right seats – the focus of the next blog!