Business Building: 5 Steps To Develop Accountability & Responsibility!

Words: George Hedley

I bet scheduling crews and dealing with people drives you crazy and keeps you up at night. When I speak at conventions, I often ask construction business owners and managers to tell me what their perfect business would be like. The common answer is a company without people! But the second most important ingredient to business success is finding and keeping excellent people. (Number one is customers.) Without good help, you’ll never make any profit or be able to grow your business.

Are you a firefighter?
Do you ever feel like a firefighter running from one fire to another with only a garden hose? Do you feel like all you do is put out everyone else’s fires? Do you do your employees’ work all day and yours all night? Do you wish your people were more accountable? Wonder why they don’t take on more responsibility? In a recent poll of field employees, 66 percent were asked to make decisions. But only 14 percent of them feel empowered and trusted to make the decision. They’re afraid their boss will yell at them if they make the wrong choices or mistakes. So rather than risk it, employees don’t take on more than they must. The root of most people’s problems is the boss, not the employee.

Who owns the problem?
When the boss owns every problem, only he or she can solve them correctly. When you solve other people’s problems for them, they rely on you to solve all their problems. When people aren’t responsible for solving problems, how can they be responsible for solutions? Do your employees rely on you to solve their problems? Do they depend on you to make most decisions for them? Each person who works for you wants to be accountable and responsible for some part of their job. It’s your job to let go of their responsibilities and get them doing what you pay them to do. Without empowered people, you’ll never grow your business.

You can’t do it all yourself!
Small business owners start out as the sole proprietors making almost every decision. Successful business owners realize they can’t do it all themselves and seek people they can trust, delegate to, and grow with. Look at the bigger companies. They have levels of responsible people who make most everyday business decisions. The owner had to decide he wasn’t the only person on the planet who was smart enough to make decisions.

The number one reason employees don’t accept accountability or responsibility is that they don’t know exactly what you want them to do. You tell them, but they really don’t fully understand what you want or how to do it. So, they’re afraid to step forward and find solutions for fear of their boss’s reaction when things aren’t done the way he wants them done. The number two reason employees don’t accept responsibility is because their boss doesn’t really trust them to make decisions. Do you tell your people what to do and then say: “Before you do that, check with me first”?

5 Steps To Get People To Be Accountable & Responsible

Establish Clear Expectations & Understanding
The first step to accountability is to make people clearly understand what you want them to do. When asked, over 75 percent of employees don’t know specifically what they’re asked to do, what’s expected, or what results their boss wants them to accomplish, and by when. Go ask your people the top three things you want them to accomplish today. Will they give you the answer you think they should? Probably not!

To ensure your people know what you want, tell them, show them, and then draw a visual picture to explain it again. People remember what they see, not what they hear. Next, ask them to tell you how to do what you’ve asked. Then ask them to show you how to do it. Your job is to make things 100 percent clear and then coach through the process of learning or remembering.

For example, if you want your crew to complete forming 200 lineal feet of site walls and have them ready for pouring concrete by Friday, what would you do? Poor managers take on the supervisor’s job themselves and micro-manage their foreman two or three times a day. They make sure things are progressing properly, order all materials, make the necessary phone calls, and schedule the required labor and equipment. In other words, they don’t let their foreman make any decisions about the actions required to achieve the desired end results. A good leader would call a team meeting and help the foreman create an action plan for the crew.
Create Scorecard & Tracking System
To make people accountable and responsible, there must be simple milestones, deadlines, and results to achieve and track. Just like in baseball, there are nine innings and statistics for runs, hits, errors, walks, strikeouts, home runs, and runs batted in. Your team members need to know how they stand to meet the goals and expectations. Without a tracking system, people can’t be accountable for results without daily knowledge of their current progress towards achieving the end results.

I created a “Hardhat Scorecard” to track the progress of job activities for our team to set and review on a daily or weekly basis. Email gh@hardhatpresentations.com to receive a sample job cost tracking scorecard. At the beginning of each project phase, get the team together to discuss the goals you want to track and achieve. Using the example of forming a wall, the target would be 100 percent ready to pour on Friday. The three sub-goals can be foundations, forming, and rebar installation.
Define Levels Of Authority
To avoid confusion, misunderstandings, and build trust with people, they must clearly know what their level of authority is. Can they buy materials, supplies, or tools? How much can they spend without approval from their boss? Can they commit the company, or hire and fire? What decisions are they authorized to make on their own? Who approves overtime, doing extra work, or ordering equipment?

I learned a long time ago my people make better decisions than I do. They’re more careful with my money than I am. Given clear rules and parameters, your people will become great team leaders and empowered employees. Given little or no authority keeps them unaccountable and unresponsible. What’s your spending limit for your foremen without checking with you? Is it more than $0? When I increased the maximum spending limit for my foreman to $1,000, they were able to handle most of the little day-to-day decisions without my involvement. I also entrusted them to schedule and handle all inspections, schedule material deliveries, and order any tools or supplies they needed. This allowed them to grow and become fully accountable team leaders.
Be A Coach, Not A Controller
People want to be coached, not controlled. The best coaches usually win the most games. When your crew leader isn’t accountable or responsible, it’s a reflection of the coach’s total control and dictatorship. The more you control, the less your people do for themselves. The more decisions you make for them, the less decisions they make themselves. The more questions you answer for them daily, the less they have to think, learn, and be accountable for. Is that what you want? Good coaches train their people regularly. They have team meetings to review progress. And they ask their team leaders to think for themselves, solve problems, find solutions, and call their own plays. Even great head football coaches don’t call their own plays. Your job is to explain what’s expected and then provide feedback as to their progress. Use regular check-in times, follow-up, monitor progress, and stay in touch. But don’t do it all for them!
Celebrate & Reward Success
When accountable and responsible people achieve great results, they need to be appreciated, thanked and rewarded. It’s your job as a leader to set up a fun, competitive, and simple system to reward success. At your regular job or company meetings, pick out two people to recognize for a job well done.

Make it happen!
By implementing these simple steps, your people will grow and want to take on more responsibility. The key is your decision to make it your responsibility to let go of accountability. Get started right now by taking three things off of your “to-do” list and delegating them to someone else.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
George Hedley CPBC is a certified professional construction business coach, consultant, and popular speaker. He helps contractors build better businesses, grow, profit, develop management teams, improve field production, and get their companies to work. He is the best-selling author of “Get Your Construction Business To Always Make A Profit!” available on Amazon.com. Watch his educational videos on YouTube. To get his free e-newsletter, start a personalized BIZCOACH program, download online courses, or utilize his contractor templates visit: https://constructionbusinesscoaching.com or E-mail GH@HardhatBizcoach.com.

Business Building: 5 Steps To Develop Accountability & Responsibility!

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