Initiating: The First Step in Accountability

You deserve to have your coworkers keep their promises. Here’s where to start.

(This is an excerpt from “Chapter 2 — Initiate” of my forthcoming book The Accountability Protocol.)

The first of the four steps of the Accountability Loop is Initiate.

What is Initiate?

Initiate — an Asker asks a Doer to do something by delivering a Request for Performance.

When we start a new Accountable Agreement, we take on the role of Asker. As the Asker we Initiate.

Initiating well makes the rest of the entire loop easier. Doing it badly can breed problems.

Example: while learning about Initiate, Paul was invited to look at his email outbox for instances where he sent an email answering a question and clarifying something that he could have made clear during Initiate. Paul saw he kept asking his assistant Nancy to make appointments for him with prospects, but neglected to send her 2 of the 4 data points she needed to actually make the appointment. So, Nancy had to chase Paul to collect that data, before she could perform the task he’d asked for.

Wasteful Rework

This omitting of key data during Initiate is a very common way that people create extra work for themselves. Spending time answering questions, clarifying after the fact what you could have made clear up front, is the very definition of wasteful.

Karen Martin writes in Clarity First: “Clarity is rare because it requires a lot more short-term work than does ambiguity.” The Initiate phase is your first opportunity to invest in clarity early in the Loop, for later payoff. [1]

Pause from reading this a minute, and go look in your own email outbox. In the past few days, how many emails have you sent either asking for clarification, or giving clarification to others, where the requested clarity could have been provided up front? Roughly how much delay was created by this wasteful process of asking for missing information?

Initiate as the Start of a Conversation

Think of this as the start of a conversation. Your output, the Request for Performance, is your first attempt at sharing your Conditions of Satisfaction. These are the conditions that must be met for you to be satisfied with the result of your request.

We say it’s your “first attempt” because you might revise your Conditions of Satisfaction during the Negotiate phase, in light of new information brought to your attention by your Doer.

Example: you might Initiate by asking for oak flooring, then learn during the later Negotiate phase that oak is out of stock, whereupon you may shift to your second choice, bamboo flooring. It’s not wrong or wasteful to ask for oak. That was your first choice.

Ask for what you want

I sometimes see people try to guess what the Doer will say, and try to limit or change their Initiate step based on their guesses. One worker I know will routinely agonize over a Request, trying to guess what limits the Doer might have, or what might be out of stock, or what other work the Doer is committed to. She acts as if she needs to already know what the Doer is going to say, so that her Request for Performance arrives already pre-Negotiated.

For example, six weeks ago she asked about oak flooring and was told at the time that it was out of stock. Now she’s ready to order flooring. Should she again say she wants oak, or should she say “oak is my first choice and bamboo is my second,” or should she just ask for bamboo?

My strong guidance is, ask for what you want and give context.

Here are two different ways you will routinely see the Initiate phase play out:

1. Bo asks Chris for oak now. Chris knows oak is coming in two weeks and says merely “we’re out of oak.” So, Bo orders bamboo. Bo gets the flooring tomorrow, and it sits in storage for three weeks until the installers are ready. Bo could have gotten oak if only the two had communicated better.
2. Bo tells Chris: “I’d prefer oak flooring. Bamboo is my second choice. I’d love to buy this now because we need to spend the money by the end of this week, but we won’t start installing for about three weeks. What do you suggest?” Chris can suggest paying now for back-ordered oak expected to arrive in two weeks.

Another excellent reason to ask for what you want is, asking educates your Doer.

If you ask your grocer for organic apples and are told they don’t stock that, you may feel disappointed. However you’ve just informed your grocer that one of her customers would buy organic apples if only she stocked them. When enough customers ask for organic apples, the grocer will likely start stocking them.

Moral: Always ask for what you want and give context. It can shape the future behavior of your potential Doers, making it easier for you to get what you want next time.

Ask with an Initiate template

If you’ve initiated this particular request before, you should be looking for ways to ask better.

If you’ve never initiated this particular request before, you should be looking for a standard way to surface all your Conditions of Satisfaction. I suggest you use an Initiate checklist or template.

A good Job Aid is anything that makes good performance easier and bad performance harder, ideally while reducing cognitive or other work load. Every phase of the Accountability Loop will be shown with at least one Job Aid in the form of a generic checklist you can run through to help ensure you’re being complete.

Here are common questions you can ask yourself as you prepare a thorough initial Request for Performance.

1. Do I want an Outcome or just an Activity?
2. By when do I need my result?
3. What context should I give so that my Doer can make smart tradeoffs?
4. How do I want to receive my result?
5. How do I want to receive notification that my result is ready?
6. What interim work products or status reports do I want?
7. What are the top risk factors I foresee?

Acknowledgment

I’m deeply grateful to Fernando Flores, whose book Conversations for Action has informed much of my work.

Learn More

To learn more about the forthcoming book The Accountability Protocol and how to be notified when it’s available, visit this link.

Excerpts on Medium from the Book The Accountability Protocol:

• A Language and Method for Increasing Accountability
• Initiating: The First Step in Accountability
• Lessons from a Lack of Accountability: A Story of Dropping the Ball, and How Not To
• Outcome or Activity? The First Question in Accountability

End notes

[1] Martin, Karen. Clarity First: How Smart Leaders and Organizations Achieve Outstanding Performance (p. 14). McGraw-Hill Education. Kindle Edition.