Accountability
Running a business is all about your people. This in turn is all about teamwork. This in turn is all about delegation. However, this is a two way street. This is a relationship built upon accountability.
You can have systems, technology, policies, training and management structures in place, but without your people taking responsibility for their work and being accountable to the outcomes, your business will not be as productive as your competitors.
To implement this you need leaders.
Change starts with recruitment:
Change happens with teamwork:
Change fails with leadership:
It does not really matter if you have a shiny employee handbook, a verbose set of practise and procedures manuals, an employee retention policy based on fluffy employee benefits and what you see as great training, without your people being accountable your business will not thrive.
This is where I am increasingly impressed by ClickUp.
Their marketing is peculiar and talks to project managers first with a weird nod to productivity. However at its very heart, are some very experienced business change thinkers who are building a tool that makes teams transparent, individuals accountable and subsequently gives business leaders the information to make good decisions.
I think that their claim of saving one day out of five in productivity is achievable but their AI 'Brain' is simply game-changing. Your leaders can receive summarised information across multiple teams and various people from artificial intelligence. I love it!
As with any tool, you need to follow the three rules of tools:
Always remember:
The 3 Rules of Tools:
Right tool for the right job
A bad worker always blames their tools
There is always another way to skin a cat
If you cannot get your people to work with time saving, money saving solutions that help your business do more with less, look towards your leadership first.
Let's think about an example:
Every business needs cashflow. You may have marked a sale as complete but that does not necessarily mean that the cash is in the bank. This is where retailers can annoy me. They have sales cash readily available at the point of sale. How do they make so many mistakes? Anyhow, imagine an estate agency for example, that has sold a property but now has the unenviable task of progressing this sale to completion. It can take months, and is normally dictated by the speed and competency of conveyancing solicitors. There can be multiple links in the chain including financing, searches and involved legal checks that are not controlled by the estate agent. ClickUp can manage such a project, highlight blockages, give time estimates to completion and most importantly share this situation with other team members. Finance departments should love it.
Most software packages have project tracking capabilities, but from the point of view of their specialisations. ClickUp, with its AI Brain, opens each area of a business to every other area and acts as a PA for the entire business. Permissions and security considered, this is the definition of accountability.
