For small business owners, the whole conversation about business culture is a difficult one. Most feel they don’t have time to get that “deep” into their business thinking, due to the day-to-day grind. However, the more one understands about the culture within their business, how it came to be, where it needs to go and ultimately how to get it there will take their business to a level of performance never thought possible. The culture that exists in your business produces its results.
In past articles, we’ve explored the role culture plays in business success and failure, reviewed ways to identify strengths and weaknesses within your business and then discussed the various elements within company cultures. I have spent the past six years studying the subject of repair shop culture and as my understanding grows, I realize personal accountability is the very foundation of positive business culture. So let’s look deeper at defining and improving your company’s culture through the eyes of accountability.
Every type of culture imaginable within a business starts with leadership. There are no exceptions, so the first step is to take personal responsibility as a leader and personal accountability for your leadership results. It is here that understanding the difference between accountability and responsibility really helps put things into perspective. When you accept responsibility, you have been given a task or role. When you are accountable, you answer for the outcome of those tasks or role. So, you may have the responsibility for leading an organization as part of management, but until you seriously accept personal accountability for the outcome of your leadership influence, you are not truly fulfilling your role through actions associated with it. This can be true for any role. Those who have a title and may even verbally accept responsibility, but then fail to be personally accountable for the successful output of that role, bring businesses down. They simply are going through the motions, but are not sincere enough to care. When a business culture is made up of that type of thinking, the company struggles in every way and typically blames everyone else for it.
In small businesses, a lack of accountability is often an issue. Attitudes that scream, “this is my business and I will run it however I please” or “no one can tell me how to run my business” are often an indication of serious operational and cultural weaknesses. Granted as an owner, this type of thinking in one sense is true, yet rarely produces positive results. The point is, everyone needs someone to hold them accountable. This is one area that larger corporations have over smaller businesses, simply because a chain of accountability exists. It is important that every leader be held accountable, as openness of accountability to employees can build respect and increase levels of performance across the board. This is because employees tend to follow what they see from leadership.
Every step of growth toward a better, more productive, safer and happier business culture is made possible by accountability. For many years, I spoke about the need for our industry to adopt a culture of learning. The challenges this adoption faced was around the lack of accountability. If shop owners, technicians or administrative staff failed to be accountable within their role, they rarely see the need to train and educate themselves and do not make it a priority. It is not until accountability increases individually and then begins to spread to hold one another accountable that the higher-achieving culture begins to take shape.
In a business culture that does not accept and encourage consistent and open accountability, it is common to see it used only when something goes wrong. Accountability that only rears its head in these situations never works. It fosters blame, back biting and resentment within the ranks of staff, typically against each other, but especially against leadership. It should also be noted that this type of cultural environment doesn’t make itself obvious, but normally lives in the shadows and in the side conversations within small groups who blame everyone else for everything believed to be less than ideal. This type of culture, like all cultures within a business, feels normal to most everyone who has worked there for more than a couple of years.
As leadership accountability begins to show up openly to employees and then employees begin to hold themselves and each other accountable for their contributions and actions, you will always have some individuals who just can’t accept the change to personal accountability. These individuals must be identified, coached and encouraged initially, but then if the shift to accountability can’t be embraced, they must be let allowed to move. Otherwise, they will interfere with progress.
It must always be kept in mind that culture produces results, good or bad, and can unleash potential or limit it. The foundation for all positive cultures within a business is accountability. Accountability takes responsibility for actions and results. A good test for accountability is willingness and eagerness to learn. Personal accountability creates a thirst for knowledge and expertise, because a repair without it will not be a correct, safe and quality one. I would offer to the reader that no owner or technician who holds themselves personally accountable for the quality and safety of the work they produce believes it can be done without ongoing learning. When someone takes personal responsibility for a role and then holds themselves accountable for the outcome of their actions, powerful and positive things begin to happen. Failing businesses turn around and become successful. Individuals find successful careers and balance it with a solid home life. Good things just begin to happen.
As the business culture grows more positive and accountability begins to become accepted, it defines the very nature of the relationships within the business in a very different way. Individuals begin to help one another, look out for one another and more importantly they look out for the customer’s vehicle. Accountability drives caring — caring about everything and everyone around them, including leadership. Respect for leadership grows because openly taking personal responsibility for the role of leadership and taking personal accountability for the business’s output as leadership creates the ideal environment. This is when we see true servant leaders becoming admired and everyone embracing a company vision into a positive future. Learning and championing change becomes the norm and everyone takes ownership. There is a higher level of trust, transparency, communication and openness. When mistakes are made, instead of being hidden, they become opportunities to learn and lessons from mistakes are shared so they are eliminated in the future.
The moment we realize accountability is the foundation of a positive business culture and that a positive culture produces incredible results, we can begin the journey to extraordinary.
