Recruit a culture of honest inquiry?

Dear Bob …

Working for a moderately large, but significant government agency gives opportunities to observe (and strive to change) organisational culture of many different colours and textures. The concept of ‘building a culture of honest inquiry‘ is more than harmonious with my objectives – it resonates. However, I’d like to take you to task (a little) over one of the measures – or, more accurately with what you have and haven’t expressed.

You say: “Don’t create disincentives for honesty. If you ask for honest data, and use it to ‘hold people accountable,’ you won’t get honest data. Why would you? The superior alternative is to employ people who take responsibility without external enforcement, and to create incentives for that kind of behavior. This works much better, and takes less effort.”

That’s all very well. I wholeheartedly agree with the concept that that seeking honest data against which people will be held accountable is going to deliver data that explains current circumstances at best, and will frequently result in “dishonest” data. But, it is too simplistic to advise that leaders employ people who are willing to take responsibility (although I agree with you) and that they should create incentives to encourage that behaviour (although, once again, I agree). I say simplistic, because the advice is perilously close to being little more than “anecdote and metaphor.” I suppose I’m really wanting a more in-depth answer, all in the space of a one page article.

If that’s what I want, I suppose that I need to offer something as well.

I have long championed the position that recruitment is the most effective cultural change tool that we have at our disposal. In a government agency, that’s not a very popular position, but it is one that you can “sneak up on,” i.e. it doesn’t need to be an overt, overnight change in thinking, but something that you can bring about as each recruitment opportunity comes up – to paraphrase Monty Python, there just aren’t enough recruitment opportunities and it’s unethical and time-consuming to go out and cause them, so you have to rely on those that come to hand.

However, I find that I’m often in the situation where I’m encouraging honesty of inquiry and honesty of reporting from people who aren’t really “responsible,” but they are held accountable for outcomes where they don’t really have control over/responsibility for the achievement of those outcomes. That’s the dilemma I face. With a firm belief in a better way, but without any real clout, how do I create (in reality, work to get my organisation to create) situations where people are both accountable and responsible?

This has turned from an intended plea for more information about incentives to encourage taking responsibility with external enforcement into a rant about the gulf that often separates responsibility and accountability. My apologies for that!

So, getting back to my intended question: What things do you see as being incentives for people to take responsibility without external enforcement? I’m tired of cajoling people (predominantly project managers) to be honest in their reporting and others (primarily project sponsors) to be willing to undertake honest inquiry into their project’s circumstances. Is there a simple answer to the question: “What’s in it for me?” Well, them really, I know what’s in it for me! That ‘simple question’ pretty well sums up my problem – how do I best explain the value of honest inquiry, and how do I go about encouraging it?

– Civil servant

Dear Civil …

Your comments reminded me of something an organizational development consultant once told me: If you want to change the culture you can either change the people or change the people. I figure it takes both.

Your point is right on the money here – recruitment is a wonderful tool for helping do so. First, the nature of the people you recruit sends a message to every current employee regarding the characteristics you value. And second, the behavior of your recruits can set an example for everyone else. (But be wary of the reverse effect: It’s easy for the new recruits to become infected with the exact culture you’re trying to change, unless you give then enough attention and reinforcement to help them resist it.)

To answer your question – what kinds of incentives can a manager provide for taking responsibility and for passing along an honest count – I think the key is to avoid trying to be clever about it. It doesn’t have to be anything more than giving (as you can within the restrictions of your HR policies) the best assignments, promotions, bonuses, best salary increases, and public compliments to those employees who demonstrate a willingness to take responsibility, and who tell you what you need to know without filtering out the “bad news.”

Don’t, that is, reward people for results. Reward them for telling you, accurately, what’s going on. And then, when it’s a problem and you ask the key questions – how did it happen and what are you going to do about it – reward those who matter-of-factly tell you how it happened (“I didn’t anticipate this.”) and are taking charge of the situation (“It’s going to take some late hours on my part and on the part of a couple of key staff members to get things back on track, but we’ll take care of it.”)

You might also consider violating the old rule about praising in public and criticizing in private, although you’ll need to be diplomatic about it. If, for example, you manage project managers and one of them has a project that goes from green to red without ever having been in the yellow, make it clear in a staff meeting that this simply isn’t possible.

“I don’t know whether the definition of ‘yellow’ isn’t clear enough or if I’ve somehow created an environment in which some of you don’t think it’s acceptable to report any status other than green. From this point forward, if your project is at risk, report it yellow so we can make sure we have a plan for getting it back into the green. That’s a whole lot better than having your project come off the rails because you weren’t willing to tell anyone there’s a problem.”

I’m oversimplifying a bit, of course. You don’t, for example, want to reward people who constantly experience avoidable problems but handle them well over those who are good enough to not have them. But you get the idea, I think. Reward the right behavior, not the right reported results, unless your system of measurement is reliable enough, and independent enough of the people doing the work, that you’re very confident of its accuracy.

– Bob