Business Advice: How to Create an Accountable and Responsible Team and Stop Being a SAPP

One of the keys to business success for an entrepreneur is their ability to build a team of motivated employees that are aligned to the company's goals. 

A common complaint I hear from my clients about their employees is that, "They're not accountable or responsible for anything - getting work done on-time or doing quality work" or "They continuously do sloppy work and running over budget on every job".  "Why can't they be accountable or responsible?"  They are at a loss of what to do and it stresses the hell out of them. 

When you think about it maybe you start wondering, that they don't care or don't want to work hard or they just want to do what is minimally required.  Does this sound familiar?

If we are honest with ourselves, what's holding most of us back from building a success team is, well...us.  Yes, I said it.  It's us!

As a business owner, most of the time, we are the one responsible.  It's our need or maybe fear that makes us want to control everything.  The problem is that when we control everything that turns us into a SAPP - Solving All People's Problems.

 

In business there seems to be a very fine bar between success and failure.  The question I consistently ask my clients is, are you and your team acting above or below this bar? 

We all know people who act below this bar.  They are always BLAMING others, coming up with EXCUSES, or might be in DENIAL that they are the problem.  

On the other hand...  Successful business leaders and teams play above this bar.  They are looking for Opportunities, they are ACCOUNTABLE for the results they need to achieve, and they are RESPONSIBLE for their actions.

The thing that most business owners or managers don't realize is it's with our actions and our speech that we can help raise our team Above the Bar or keep the Below the Bar.

We keep our team (and family members) below the bar by asking judgmental questions like, Why did you do that? What's wrong with you?  Why can't you get this right?  Who did this?  When we ask the judgmental questions all we get are Excuse, Blaming, or Denials that they are not the problem.

The way we coach our team to be Responsible, Accountable, and take Ownership, is by asking learning type questions like, What could we have done differently?  How could we have done better?  How can we prevent this from happening again?  What could we learned from this? 

Have you noticed one thing each of these questions have in common?  The use of the word WE instead of I.  When use WE, as owners, leaders, and managers, we are taking some responsibility and ownership of the mistake.  Instead of putting the focus on the employee, we are focusing on the action and learning what the appropriate action could have been.  This way they learn, we learn, the whole team learns.

Now your team will begin to make better choices and decisions.  They won't have to be standing at your door waiting to ask you how to do things because they are afraid of making a mistake.  The best part is you'll start becoming less of a  SAPP (solving all people's problems) and more of a leader.  Your team will begin to take Ownership of the situation, being Accountable to you and Responsible for their actions.  Now you'll be well on your way to building a more valuable business that can work without you.