Accountability Chart Mastery (Part Four of Six). If your community bank, credit union, or non-banking business runs on the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS®) (or even if you don’t), the accountability chart is one of the most powerful tools to getting what you want from your business.

In part one of this series, we talked about what an accountability chart is why it is important to have one. In part two, we addressed some stories with creating accountability charts. In part three, we started reviewing some building blocks of accountability chart mastery. In part four of this series, we address building out the senior leadership team level of your accountability chart.

Pressing Forward

In part three of this series, we have the start of an accountability chart at the senior leadership team level. Once the senior leadership team has that done to their relative satisfaction, sit on it for a few weeks. At your next senior leadership team L10 team meeting, review the work you did to see if you are still in agreement on it. If not, do the changes necessary and then sit on it again.

While we are pressing you to get it right the first time, as a leadership team, you can always change course. Taking the time now to get it 80 to 90% right will save some heartache in a few months if you suddenly realize that a function should be accountable somewhere else.

Now that you have the accountability chart right for your organization, put names into the seats – evaluating each senior leadership team member nominated to occupy that seat. Sometimes seat members may be obvious (Finance and Sales are usually these), but sometimes, the name which would be obvious to go into a senior leadership team position seat is a better fit for a seat further down in the accountability chart. For instance, some sales folks are great at meeting customers and closing deals but may have zero ability to run a team, set sales goals for a team and generally be a leader.

Focus on getting the accountability chart right, then put the people into the seats. Expect some leadership team heartache – it’s part of the process!

When your leadership team is comfortable with the accountability chart, then have each member of the leadership team build the accountability chart under their seat. Building out the accountability chart can be complicated and a bit time consuming and generally we do not recommend an HR person be tasked with this duty. The reason we do not recommend it is that the HR person will tend to be mentally stuck with creating/updating an org chart, not building an accountability chart. Their personality profiles tend to being a people-first view, not an accountability first view. If you decide to task one person with this, ideally it would be the Integrator or someone working with the Integrator to make sure you are objective on the accountabilities.

In community financial institutions (encompassing community banks and credit unions), things to look for are:

• Shared accountabilities in the loan and deposit operations areas under different leadership team members.
• Finance reporting up to an operational or sales leader. Finance needs to be on the senior leadership team.
• Two sales leaders on the leadership team – business and retail.
• Too many people on the leadership team. Ideally, you should be at five to seven people.
• We have seen product development and new product rollout accountabilities split between sales, marketing, IT, and operations. This accountability needs to be under one of these areas, and the other areas can be part of the rollout team.
• In smaller organizations, it is ok to have one person in two seats. Just never have one seat with two people in it unless it is a clerk, teller or another role where there are many people in the same type of role.
• Owners and board of directors are not part of the leadership team unless they also have a functional role in the business. They are not listed on the accountability chart.

In part five, we’ll address creating a standalone accountability chart for a department of a company not currently implementing EOS.

Resources:

• Download the EOS Business Management Tools
• Free Ebook on how to lead world class meetings
• Contact Us for more information about building out the Accountability Chart for your community bank or credit union. Accountability chart mastery is important, and we can help you get there.

Accountability Chart Mastery (Part Three of Six). If your community bank, credit union, or non-banking business runs on the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS®) (or even if you don’t), the accountability chart is one of the most powerful tools to getting what you want from your business.

In part one of this series, we talked about what an accountability chart is and why it is important to have one. In part two, we addressed some stories with creating accountability charts. In part three of this series, we start reviewing some building blocks of accountability chart mastery.

Lets Fix This

In the EOS world, building an accountability chart starts with the leadership team. It is based on the premise that there are basically three basic functions in an EOS organization: Sales/Marketing, Operations, Finance. In the EOS world, we add the role of Integrator, a role that integrates the three basic functions, keeping them on track and accountable. In some organizations, there is a Visionary, but many times in smaller organizations, the Visionary and Integrator are combined into a single accountability chart function.

Your organization may have more at the top level than the basic accountability chart explained here. In a community bank or credit union, some of the critical accountabilities at the top is those of a Risk Officer and a Chief Credit Officer and depending on your institution size, you may want those roles on the senior leadership team.

At the senior leadership team level, document the broad, general accountabilities each of the functions would have. For instance, the Sales and Marketing function would have:

• Setting marketing goals and holding the marketing team accountable
• Attracting the right customers to your sales team
• Presenting the right credit or deposit solution to your customers and closing the deal
• Setting sales goals and holding the sales team accountable to those goals
• After the sale service and support

Some organizations may put the customer experience under the sales function, some may put it under the Integrator function. Others may put it under the Operations function. In part 6 of this article, we’ll dive into some specific IT department accountabilities to get your chart going.

If you are working with an EOS Implementer, the accountability chart exercise will take a significant amount of time. If you are self implementing EOS as a senior leadership team, don’t underestimate the time it takes to get the leadership team accountabilities correct. Take the time, discuss each accountability honestly and openly and get it right.

In part four of our series, we address building out the senior leadership team level of your accountability chart.

Resources:

• Download free chapter of the book Traction by Gino Wickman.
• Download a free chapter of the book Rocket Fuel by Mark C. Winters and Gino Wickman
• Contact Us for more information about building out your Accountability Chart and implementing EOS in your organization.