The principles of building accountability in business settings where you get engagement instead of merely compliance.

1. “I promise to…”
BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY
TO GET THINGS DONE
By Tom Krekel

2. Execution in your organization
This eBook is for leaders frustrated with coming up short on
results that are seemingly just outside their grasp.
Many of these leaders suspect
that they don’t have adequate
buy-in or engagement from their
employees.
Often they are disappointed that
their people aren’t more
accountable.
They’re frustrated when their
expectations aren’t met.
These difficulties are not only common in organizations ….they
are widespread. When it is happening to you, it feels like a
singular experience….but it is not.
It is that slippage you feel between the ability to create a plan
and the ability to execute it fully.
A basic tenet of improving organizational execution involves
developing personal accountability. When employees have a
say in making their own commitments, instead of being told,
you have at least a foundation for success. We believe in
applying Promised-Based Management and we’ll explain this
later.
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“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE

3. Page 3
In their 2007 Harvard Business Review article “Promise-Base
Management,” Donald N. Sull and Charles Spinosa call “promise-
based management the essence of execution.”
They write “improperly executed
strategy, lack of organizational
agility, disengaged employees,
and so on – stem from broken or
poorly crafted commitments.”
“Practicing promised-based
management is about cultivating
and coordinating commitments in
a systematic way.”
Promise-Based Management
The “systematic way” is the need for an execution management
process, which we’ll describe in this eBook. But beware, there are
obstacles ahead.
Warning: One of a leader’s
challenges is push back from
those who fear being held more
accountable.
“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE

4. What to expect:
Get ready for:
“Why tried that once and it didn’t work….” or
“That won’t work here…” or “We’re already doing that….”
Don’t believe it.
Within each and every management team there is at least one person
who is deathly afraid of the notion of accountability. That person fails
to understand that accountability does not have a dark or negative
connotation.
The naysayer thinks the organization is practicing “accountability”
without knowing what a truly effective execution management system
looks like.
A leader must drive the adoption of an effective execution
management process. Well…what is that exactly?
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“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE

5. What an execution management system?
Execution management is a term thrown around too loosely in
business. In short it is:
“Clarifying, deploying and achieving an organization’s initiatives”
q Execution management is not an HR process. It is a leadership
process.
q It is not a replacement for a performance appraisal system
(though many appraisal systems ought to be replaced).
q It’s not a project management tool.
q While individuals may have professional development goals
(recommended), this process isn’t about employee development,
per se. It is about the organization achieving its goals.
q Software can only support an execution management process.
Software is not execution management.
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“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE

6. “The best performance management programs are
designed to stimulate the right kinds of conversations
around the right topics. That’s all.”
Patrick Lencioni from “The Advantage”
q Software supports an execution management leadership process, by
providing reporting progress towards goals throughout the
organization. But this is a leadership process that does not require
software. You’ve just got to commit to the habit.
Page 6
q Software is just a tool to document & track individual’s
commitments and monthly one-on-one meetings, that we’ll
describe later.
“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE

7. Execution Management Systems
The components of the process are based on:
ü Individually negotiated commitments or what we call
Performance Agreements that are drafted in the employee’s
own hand (and then approved by the leader).
ü Performance Agreements go beyond goals and clarify the day
job, or what you’re counting on the employee to accomplish for
on an ongoing basis, as distinct from their goals.
ü Goals tied to the company’s top initiatives.
ü Monthly one- on-one meetings between each leader and each
employee which discuss the employee’s implementation of day-
to-day responsibilities and progress towards the goals.
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Day job Goals
“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE

8. Only 15%
Consider these findings from
recent research from:
“The 4 Disciplines of Execution” by
McChesney, Covey and Huling
based on hundreds of organizations
surveyed (2012)
Is execution really a problem?
of all employees could name even
one of their organization’s goals!
______%
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“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE

9. said they weren’t
held accountable
for regular
progress on goals
81%
From “The 4 Disciplines of Execution”……
87%
said they had no clear idea what they
should do to achieve a goal. Page 9
“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE

10. #1
“It's rarely for lack of
smarts or vision.
Most unsuccessful
CEOs stumble
because of one
simple, fatal
shortcoming.”
Authors Ram Charan and
Geoffrey Colvin’s in their
June, 1999 Fortune cover story.
“It’s bad execution.
As simple as that: not
getting things done…
not delivering on
commitments.”
ACCORDING TO
FORTUNE MAGAZINE’S EPIC COVER STORY, FROM JUNE 1999
WHY CEOs FAIL
Page 10

11. More than half of business leaders recognize this gap but even
more disturbing, 64% lack confidence in their organization’s
ability to close that gap.
The Strategy to Execution Gap
According to Fortune Magazine less than 10% of strategies
effectively formulated are implemented fully.
If you’ve felt as if you are
struggling with execution,
you are not alone.
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“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE

12. ü Too many managers
confuse communication
with engagement. Just
calling an employee
meeting and sharing the
plan doesn’t enlist
individual buy-in or
commitment. Employees
are spectators.
Why is there a disconnect?
What are the reasons that carefully crafted strategic plans fail to get
fully implemented?
ü Managers assume employees clearly understand their roles and
responsibilities.
ü Many leaders believe execution is intuitive and that they should
know how do to it automatically.
ü Often, executive teams treat planning as a task. They finish, check
the box and move on.
ü Meaningful, intentional conversations on progress are infrequent,
and unstructured (if they happen at all).
ü Strategies and goals get lost in the day to day.
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“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE

13. 2 reasons strategic plans are not implemented fully
ü There are too many company initiatives
ü Often those initiatives are not clear or understood at all
levels
q We recommend no more than three
initiatives with one designated as #1.
Companies with too many priorities
have no priorities.
q Lose $3 words, and write in a way that
everyone can understand. You MUST be
able to clearly determine whether the
initiative was achieved.
q For your #1 initiative, pick a Critical
Number. This Key Performance Indicator
is the best measure an initiative’s
outcomes. (See Verne Harnish’s
“Scaling Up”)
Why so many initiatives?
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Download a
sample chapter >>
“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE

14. “Every organization, if it
wants to create a sense of
alignment and focus, must
have a single top priority
within a given time period.”
“The Advantage”
by Patrick Lencioni
On too many initiatives…..
“If you’re trying to execute
five, ten or even twenty
important goals, the truth is
your team can’t focus.”
“The 4 Disciplines of Execution”
by McChesney, Covey, & Huling
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“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE

15. Initiatives need to be tight
Express your company’s clearly and succinctly.
One convention to follow is:
“From X to Y by when”
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Examples of ambiguous
initiatives:
• To improve our customer
care experience
• Develop a world class
engineering staff
• Increase operational
efficiency through training
Poorly conceived initiatives
create more confusion than
clarity.
RECOMMENDATION: Company initiatives need one person
designated as the accountable owner. While many may have
responsibilities for achieving the initiative, (through their individual
goals), someone needs to “count” or keep track of the initiative’s
journey toward completion. That person is responsible for raising a
red flag when issues arise.
“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE

16. There are really two basic types
of activities in every
organization:
Maintaining and Improving.
Maintaining is everyone’s day
job. Getting orders sold,
produced, recorded and
revenue collected. Maintaining
customer service, vendor
relations and inventory levels.
The big miss: the day job
Initiatives and goals are improving activities. They facilitate
enhancement of a process or capability. They result in the
organization or its employees trying out new things, or learning to do
the same things differently.
Agreeing on the outcomes you
expect from someone in their
day job is central to building
accountability.
This is often totally missed in
execution planning.
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“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE

17. Goals have a finite life. They need a finish line. They need a well-
defined measure of success. The day job doesn’t. It is ongoing. As
long as I am the CFO, for example, I’m responsible for the cash
position of the company (to name one outcome). That is different
from a goal for example of “design a collections process to reduce our
accounts receivable days from 60 to 45 days by June 1st.” Here is an
improving activity…which once the process is implemented requires
ongoing maintenance (now someone’s day job).
The focus of a strategic plan is naturally on things we are going to
improve. For this reason, the BIG MISS in executional planning is NOT
TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THAT PEOPLE HAVE DAY JOBS.
Yet the day job is where we expect most people will spend the
majority of their time, while goals are added to their responsibilities.
You must reconcile the competing demands or time in advance.
Goals have a finite life
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Goals have a start and a finish.
“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE

18. it might surprise managers to learn that so-called stretch goals quite
commonly produce poor outcomes.
Dr. Aubrey C. Daniels is one of the world’s foremost authorities on
applying scientifically-proven laws of human behavior to the
workplace. His academic research and many years of consulting
experience has led him to this conclusion:
“Stretch goals are an ineffective management practice and, as such,
waste time and money.”
In his book “Oops, 13 Management Practices that Waste Time and
Money” he concludes:
“Stretch goals are based on the faulty assumption that you have to
pull performance out of people and, without repeated challenges,
people will settle for something less that they are capable of doing.”
What is a stretch goal?
It’s an imprecise term but roughly we’re talking about goals that far
exceed what’s likely or possible.
Stretch goals: Little boost, mostly backfire
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“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE
Stretch goals not
only fail to drive
superior
performance but
they have
unintended
consequences
managers should
be on guard for.

19. “Stretch goals are based on the faulty assumption that you have to
pull performance out of people and, without repeated challenges,
people will settle for something less that they are capable of doing,”
according to Dr. Daniels. As an alternative he suggests ways to make
goals work for you.
Set many mini-goals.
Allow the goals to be attainable with our Herculean effort. Daniels
says in his book, “This is because positive reinforcement accelerates
performance and small goals provide more opportunities for
acceleration.”
Display the progress visibly in graphic forms – and with frequency.
Think: dashboards. Daily if possible, weekly when daily isn’t workable.
Plan positive and frequent feedback.
By plan, we mean the conversation needs to be scheduled, not
something you do casually when you think to. The monthly progress
meeting we advocate accomplishes.
Stretch goals: Little boost, mostly backfire
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“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE
If you are going to
error when goal setting,
better to set the goal
too low. Negative
reinforcement defeats
motivation.

20. Paradoxically stretch goals can put a limit on what’s possible. They
can set a perceived ceiling. By pre-determining success, people
sometimes become satisfied when they reach the level of
management expectation, also known as the “safety plateau.”
Dr. Daniels suggests a way to make goals work for you.
This is not to say you shouldn’t set lofty goals. It’s just that
unrealistic goals disempower people. You want to create the
sequential mini-goals or steps that breed the experience of success
with positive reinforcement.
Performance ceilings
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“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE
Avoid pressure to throw the Hail Mary
In the Jan/Feb 2017 of the
Harvard Business Review, a
feature article points out that
organizations most prone to
use stretch goals are often
those most desperate. Why?
They need a bold play to get
out of a pickle or current
circumstance.
“ The Stretch Goal Paradox:
Audacious targets are widely misunderstood and misused”
recommends more measured determined mini-steps. The
article’s authors Sitkin, Miller and See, advise against the
stretch goal lottery bet.

21. Make it their goal
Common goal mistakes or shortcomings
ü They are not formulated by the individual employee
Do not hand an employee a goal you have established for the
employee and then expect the employee to treat it as his or her own.
Instead have the conversation with the employee about the goal.
Think of this process as iterative. They will be questions at the
beginning but this is where clarity occurs.
Explain what you are expecting and discuss. Then ask the employee to
write his or her understanding of the objective so you know the
employee is committing to what you had in mind.
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“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE

22. Goals vs Tasks
Common goal mistakes or shortcomings
ü Having too many goals
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Thus over the course of a quarter, most people should only have one or
two goals, plus a professional development or learning goal.
For the same reason we advise against “stretch goals” having too many
goals increases the likelihood that some will be missed. Lots of missing
leads to what behavioral scientists call extinction, which means the loss
of reinforcement for previously reinforced behavior. This diminishes
motivation. (See Aubrey Daniels, book “Oops” for more).
Some of this stems from people
confusing tasks with goals. Think
of little steps taken to move the
ball down the field as tasks.
Things such as setting a meeting
or issuing an request for a
proposal, or writing a letter, don’t
rise to the level of a goal.
Tasks are just a means to an end:
not the goal. A goal (in the sense
we’re using it here) is not the kind
of thing you can do in a week of
two.
“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE

23. üThe criteria for success is ambiguous
There are two types of criteria generally. Quantitative and
qualitative.
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In our experience most “success”
criteria are ambiguous; in other
words an independent observer
couldn’t reliably determine whether
a goal has been achieved. This is
especially true with non-
quantifiable goal criteria which
require careful construction.
Defining the success criteria collaboratively creates clarity and
buy-in and results in a most realistic definition of success.
Peer accountability
As a Certified Gazelles Int’l Coach, our clients apply the
Rockefeller Habits from “Scaling Up” as an “operating system’
for improving execution.
We find the rhythm of daily
huddles enhances execution
due to the peer pressure that
results from these tightly
focused meetings. For more get
a copy of “Scaling Up” and read
chapter 11 on Meeting
Rhythms.
<<<Link to DOWNLOAD
THE ROCK HABITS HERE
“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE

24. Validation of the process
Kim Cameron is the William Russell
Kelly Professor of Management and
Organizations at the University of
Michigan and author of Positive
Leadership: Strategies for Extraordinary
Performance.
In “Positive Leadership” Professor Cameron describes the “Personal
Management Interview” (PMI) program, which closely describes the
outlines of the execution management process we follow.
The work Cameron cites is important because it lends independent
academic validation to our approach.
In “Positive Leadership” Cameron describes the PMI program.
1. An initial role negotiation session. “The goal of a role-negotiation
session is simply to obtain clarity between both parties regarding
what each expects from the other, what the goals and standards
are.”
How you get clarity on roles
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“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE

25. One-on-one’s
2. As with our practice,
the PMI program relies
on ongoing monthly
“one-on-one meetings
between the leader and
each direct report.
Professor Cameron advocates “a collaborative meeting – not a top-
down, micromanagement mechanism.” We agree.
These monthly check-in’s are not performance reviews. They should
not be backward looking judgmental critiques but rather coaching
conversations focused on the future.
Forward looking coaching
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“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE

26. Tom Krekel is a Gazelles International
Certified Coach. “We teach a proprietary
approach to building execution as an
organizational competency by using a
process that is supported by Keyne
Insights' execution software,” he
explained.
Tom has thirty years of experience as a
founder and CEO in building and
operating businesses. The companies he
ran ranged from a start-up that he
founded, to an organization of 175 full-
time employees in central New Jersey.
For more resources go to
www.FullSailStrategies.com
The author
Page 26
Tom Krekel
Four Guiding Principles of Accountability
o The first right of every employee is to know what is
expected of them.
o Execution happens at the individual level. (No
department or company ever achieved a goal. Somebody
or somebodies did).
o Employees must create their own commitments.
o There must be a regular cadence of communication.
“I PROMISE TO” – BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE