Peo­ple often have trou­ble under­stand­ing why they are account­able. Surely, if your staff don’t deliver, let’s say through bad luck, you can’t be per­son­ally account­able, right? Of course you can.

I’ve been read­ing Tom Foster’s Man­age­ment Skills blog for quite some time. His posts are all in a nar­ra­tive form. It took me a lit­tle while to get used to, but it’s a great way to engage the reader. There’s always some great con­tent, but the last few posts in par­tic­u­lar have really stuck with me.

They tell the story of a man­ager who is strug­gling with account­abil­ity, and the dis­cus­sion she is hav­ing with her man­ager. Although they form part of a larger sto­ry­line, these three have been par­tic­u­larly insightful:

Still Account­able for the Result

What Has to Change?

Why I Hold the Man­ager Accountable

I strongly rec­om­mend you take a look at them (in the above order), and if you don’t already sub­scribe, you should con­sider it. Tom has a way of mak­ing the you realise that the solu­tion exists right in front of you.