Accountability Chart Mastery (Part Two 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 address some stories with creating accountability charts.

An Accountability Back Story

While building an accountability chart, one of our clients ran into an issue with some of the service areas of the organization (this was an IT consulting firm). Two members of the senior leadership team ended up with part of the “reactive services” accountabilities. In IT consulting terms, reactive services is the Help Desk and the teams tasked with resolving computer issues as they came up. One leadership team member was over tiers 1 to 3 of the Help Desk and the other leadership team member was over tier 4 of the Help Desk. The staff reported to the proper LT members (org chart), but the accountability seat of “reactive services” was filled by two people.

It took a full six months of discussions and re-structuring to get this accountability back under one person. It was not easy, but everyone on the leadership team recognized the importance of resolving the issue. Now that the accountability is under one-person, reactive service response times are smaller and their clients are much happier.

When two are responsible for a single accountability, nobody is responsible for that accountability.

When Nobody is Accountable

Another situation which seems to keep coming up in many community banks and credit unions is that there are business functions which seem to get done, but that function is not documented and the senior leadership team either doesn’t realize the accountability exists or assumes it just naturally happens.

We see this most often with Customer Service and the Customer Experience. Customer service is part of the customer experience, so customer experience is something which needs to have a seat accountable for this critical business function. I could go on and on about what customer experience is, but for the purposes of this article, let’s say it is the experience your customer has with your organization from the marketing materials to your call center. Customer experience encompasses everything your customer sees, feels and experiences. If this critical area is not intentionally managed from an accountability standpoint, your customer experience will vary based on who or what the client is interacting with at that moment.

In part three of this series, we’ll talk about some of the building blocks of an accountability chart.

Resources:

• For more information about building a world-class customer service organization, read The Customer Service Revolution by John R. DiJulius.
• Download Gino Wickman’s free book called Decide.
• Contact Us for more information about building out the Accountability Chart for your community bank or credit union – we are here to help!

Accountability Chart Mastery – why mastering this tool leads to organization success. 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.

When we speak about Accountability Chart Mastery, we are talking about your organization’s accountability chart, not someone else’s or a mythical “ideal’ accountability chart. This is the one you and your senior leadership team will be using every day to both drive accountability across the organization and decide who or which area is responsible for business functions.

What is the Accountability Chart?

The accountability chart, as opposed to the organizational chart (or org chart), is a listing of high level critical business functions (accountabilities) and where they fall into the organization. An org chart is a listing of which positions report to whom and typically has very little to do with accountabilities, but more with human ego. The goal in creating an accountability chart for your organization is to remove the human ego from the equation and focus on what the accountabilities are and where in the organization they happen.

As you and your senior leadership team build out the accountability chart for your organization, keep in mind that as you remove the human ego (on the org chart) and start transferring it over to the accountability chart, things can get a bit intense. Protected people and those who are not accountable for anything show up quickly (in EOS terms, we call this right people in the right seats, or getting the right people on the bus as defined by Jim Collins in his must read book, Good to Great). As time goes on, the senior leadership team will become accustomed to the new accountability chart and start to view the org chart as something which held them and the organization back.

In part two, we’ll highlight a few stories about how different organizations developed their accountability charts.

Resources:

• Traction: Get a Grip on your Business by Gino Wickman
• Download a free chapter of How to Be a Great Boss by Gino Wickman and René Boer to learn how to be a more effective leader and manager.
• EOS Tools download
• Contact Us for more information about building out the Accountability Chart for your community bank or credit union – we are here to help!