I want more accountability in this business. James Denny has heard that sentence in nearly every business he has walked into for ten years, and the answer to what it would look like is always the same. People would do what they said they would do, and I could stop chasing them.

Then you watch what actually happens, and you find a leader spending Thursday and Friday asking where are we on this. That is surveillance rather than accountability, it runs on one person's memory, and it stops the moment they go on holiday.

In this episode: why chasing transfers responsibility from them back to you without either of you noticing; why late, unpleasant consequences are not accountability either; a definition with three parts, meaning expectation, visibility and consequence, where removing any one makes the whole thing collapse; the accountability equation as a multiplication rather than a list, and why leaders keep improving the component that was never broken; the five rung clarity ladder, from assumed through stated, agreed and visible to enforced, with a test for each rung; why a standard your best performer is exempt from is a price rather than a standard; and the two dials of consequence that produce four cultures, being fear, drift, the club and accountability.

Above all, the thing that separates fear from accountability is not the consequence for missing. It is whether anything good happens when somebody does the job properly, which is why you turn the positive dial up first.

This is the fourth and final part of the series. Hiring, onboarding, rhythm and accountability, which together make an operating system for a sales team.

There is a free playbook to go with this episode, with the equation, the clarity ladder and the four culture diagnostic. No form and no data capture, just a download. Link in the episode notes.

Next time we swing back to the commercial side of the house. And if there is something you would like the Geeks to cover, tell us.