Some Thoughts on Accountability

Lately, I've been running across articles, postings, and podcasts on accountability. Within organizations that I work with, this term has a negative connotation and is usually associated with some sort of punishment, assigning blame, or pinpointing failure. Also, I have witnessed many projects where people go out of their way to avoid being accountable.

Some say accountability is meaningless without a definition. To me, the meaninglessness of the term goes beyond definition. An organization can have the most robust definition in the word, but accountability is meaningless unless it is enforced.

Frequently, I see and hear accountability equated to responsibility. These are not the same thing, as anyone familiar with a RACI chart can tell you. RACI stands for "responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed. It is a model for assigning levels of participation in a task among various individuals. In the RACI model, "responsible" is defined as doing the work to achieve the task, while accountable means being ultimately accountable for the correct and thorough completion of the task. In other words, an Accountable must sign off on or approve the work that a Responsible provides.

Often, the term "accountability" is equated to a promise or commitment someone makes. Heather Stagl of "The Change Agent's Dilemma" podcast starts off her definition with "Accountability is a promise to yourself and others.....". Accountability is not the actual commitment. Instead, the term connotes a future state of an individual based on the outcome of an earlier commitment. So, my current, personal definition of accountability is:

the state of being identified as the receiver of consequences for the future outcome of a commitment.

But I still have lingering questions such as, "Is accountability defined by whether or not an individual agrees to accept the future consequences?", say when that person is representing a group that is responsible carrying out the task, and "Does it matter if those consequences are positive or negative?" Any and all thoughts are welcome.