Have you ever wondered what’s the difference between Accountable & Responsible?
Or even tried to explain to someone that difference?It’s often tricky to differentiate between both terms. The theory offers following definitions:
Accountable = result oriented
Responsible = task oriented
But does that mean that the Responsible one shouldn’t care about the result?! If you have a Product Owner accountable for managing the Backlog – does that mean that the Product Owner should on their own do all the activities? If you have a Team Lead Accountable for the results coming from their department – does that mean that they should accomplish all the work to achieve the results? Asked like this…it might be obvious already that the answer is NO!
Then, why it is so hard to get to the point and avoid confusion? It might come from the misunderstanding that by being accountable for a topic means that you’re the sole responsible for achieving it.
Or it might come from lack of trust to your co-workers, or being afraid not to insult them by ‘stepping into their’ topic, or…many other reasons.
Being accountable means that you are the person that need to make sure that expected result is achieved. And if we take the example with the Team Lead, that Team Lead should trust their team and delegate them the Responsibility to accomplish the work to achieve those expected results.
When we take the example with the Product Owner accountable to maximize the value that their product delivers, Product Owner cannot relay on their assumptions. Product Owner have to collaborate with stakeholders, development team and vendors to achieve the proper understanding which would be then represented in the Product Backlog order. Thus, all the contributors the Product Owner collaborates with are responsible for the success which Product Owner is accountable for.
In practice, siloing in your organization might be a symptom of having trouble differentiating between Accountability & Responsibility. If you observe some of the following within your organization:
- Not enough engagement with the product, team or company goals;
- Individuals that are not really identifying themselves as team-mates contributing to a shared goal;
- Low level of interest towards challenges the other in the team/organization are facing;
- Not interested enough in the product or service quality delivered to your customers & users;
- Not really getting WHAT are the needs or the problems your product or service is supposed to solve for the customers & users;
you might need some good practices to help getting out of the silo could be:
- Involve people in decision-making. Even if there would be subjects they could not influence (e.g. legislation, company policy, etc.), giving transparency about what purpose it is applied increases people’s engagement;
- Don’t fall in the trap of always assigning same topics for the one that ‘knows them the best’, or ‘that would handle them the fastest’. Short term this looks like an appealing option. But in the long run ends up with bottlenecks and impediments. Consider sometimes a bit slower execution as an investment in your team & product healthier future;
- Avoid as much as possible assigning ‘contact persons’ for different aspects of your product scope. Such an approach supports siloing within the team and increases the knowledge gap.
All the aspects of your product scope are a TEAM responsibility and all team members are sharing it.
- All team members are mature professional adults. They share the responsibility for building the right solution with the right quality. Thus, it is with them to keep each other responsible for keeping commitments they made to each other.
Of course, keeping each other responsible should happen in a collaborative, supportive, empathic and professional manner, demonstrating willingness to understand and give a helping hand if needed. Some of the questions below could be a good option for approaching a team-mate that’ going behind the committed results:
- Is there anything that concerns you?
- Would you like us to (again) look at the specifics for this requirement?
- I would benefit from having your perspective for solving that issue. Would you show me your approach?
- Ok, I (we) see that you’d like to try out some more options for solving the task. When do you see it feasible for demoing a version for it?
- Is there anything that’s distracting you from being able to focus on current tasks? Shall we support you in any way?
- Etc.
It is really important that we always remember and approach our colleagues as they are ‘professionals who are giving their best with all the knowledge, skills and experience in the given context and in the given moment’.
It is also important that we avoid general conclusions, judging, finger pointing, blaming, based on sporadic happenings.
In summary, accountability and responsibility are often hard to distinguish, but understanding their differences is essential for the efficiency, teamwork, and trust in any organization. By clearly defining who is responsible and who is accountable, we can guarantee a well structured and effective working environment.
Author: Aneta Bokova
