“Clarity is the key to effective leadership. What are your goals?” Brian Tracey

Responsibility and accountability are strongly evident at all levels of the Navy. Every service person at every level seeks to and then understands their role, responsibilities and the accountability that follows.

Furthermore, they will understand with complete clarity what the role of their team is and how this contributes to the ship and her ability to achieve their mission (organisational purpose) and vitally, what that mission is. 

In an instance when this clarity of mission and responsibility is lacking, service personnel will make it their no.1 priority to define and agree it. 

 

The difference in this regard between the military and civilian organisations is therefore stark.  Often it is only the most senior leaders who will be able to succinctly describe what they are held accountable for.  In some organisations even the most senior leaders operate in the grey – that place where there is no clarity and ambiguity reigns. 

Where clarity starts to win out is generally at levels where leaders are responsible for some financials and/or lead an entire business unit.  The black and white of owning the P&L tends to create clarity and the grey of ambiguity recedes. 

Additionally, whole organisations sometimes operate under ambiguous or absent statements of purpose (Mission) and therefore business units and teams become misaligned and ineffective.  It naturally follows that individuals will lack a clear understanding of their responsibilities, level of decision-making authority and what they will be held accountable for.

This lack of clarity in purpose and responsibility prevents accountability throughout the organisation and inhibits engagement, pro-activity, decisiveness, lean and effective teams and collaboration within and across teams.  

 

While a commander may delegate authority in whole or in part, neither the ethical responsibility of leadership nor the formal accountability of command can be delegated at any time

Royal Australian Navy Leadership Ethic

Remember accountability cannot be delegated but responsibility (CLICK HERE FOR AN ARTICLE ON THIS) must, you may hold people to account to deliver on their delegated responsibilities but accountability and the buck will stop with you.  Shared responsibility must be avoided. 

“In the years I’ve been thinking and talking about leadership, I’ve come to realize that the desperate need for accountable leaders is the fundamental challenge organizations are facing today,”

Vince Molinaro – The Leadership Contract

 

When I was consulting this lack of understanding of individual responsibilities (and how they map upward to team and organisational purpose) posed a significant problem.  I would arrive at a new client and routinely when meeting the people ask them ‘what is it that you do here?’. Generally, a senior person would give a response of reasonable clarity. 

Similarly, at the lower levels, a call centre operator for example, you would get a clear and concise response quite often. 

Worryingly at the middle levels, where most of the cognitive work needed to take place, I would receive vague, rambling answers, such as ‘I work in this team and go to this meeting, I’m involved in that project etc.’ Only a small proportion of the time would I hear ‘I am responsible for….’.  Seldom would the team purpose or responsibilities be clearly understood, nor how these contribute upward to the organisation’s goals or down to their own.

…clarity of expression greatly facilitates mission execution in the stress, fatigue, fog of war, and complexities of modern combat

US Joint Chiefs of Staff- Joint Publication 3-0 Joint Operations

…clarity is derived from purpose and Leadership’s primary responsibility is to define the purpose of the business (or team)’

Chatham Sullivan – The Clarity Principle

Clearly this lack of understanding of own or team responsibilities meant no-one felt able to make any decisions and seldom took ownership.   This caused major delays as most decisions got kicked-up to senior people, even minor matters.

There are many drivers for this, bloated and poorly structured organisations that have grown in headcount without sufficient organisational strategy is one.  People or whole teams sharing responsibilities meaning no-one is held accountable (except the lead of course) or takes ownership is another and complete lack of clarity in purpose and responsibility a third.

 

The good news is that the solution is fairly simple, the bad news is that it will not be popular with those that have become comfortable mooching about not doing very much.  On the flipside there will be high performers lurking unseen perhaps not possessing the confidence to break out of the mediocrity and start driving their area.

Firstly, the overall team mission (purpose) must be clearly defined and communicated.  The team lead will be accountable for achievement of these outcomes. The responsibilities that follow and are implied by this mission must be listed clearly.  Team mission must flow seamlessly from the higher level organisational unit and if that lacks clarity take the opportunity to write it yourself and discuss with your boss.  Tell them that in the absence of clear mission and strategy these are the assumptions you are working under.

Secondly, delegate the responsibilities into roles or sub-teams (not people).  Be clear to articulate where the responsibility ends (decision making authority) and where their intent must be discussed with the team lead (person accountable) prior to implementation (delegations – hyperlink).  Then you can clearly re-define the roles reporting into you and flowing on from this how many people you actually think you need. 

You may find you have more people or teams than responsibilities and clearly a restructure where a peer is expected to then report into the newly responsible person is probably not going to work.  It may take some time to implement your restructure but it must be done. From this a lean, confident and effective team will emerge.

Once this is done you can empower your people to ethically achieve their responsibilities however they choose.  They will require your trust and will need to know you have confidence in their abilities. They must own the successes and you must own the failures and the plan and support required to set them up for success next time.

 

…without such clarity, team members are likely to waste energy negotiating roles or protecting turf rather than focussing on the task

Harvard Business Review – The Secrets of Great Teams

Additionally, HBR goes on to say clear roles but an undefined approach increases the time and energy put into collaborating towards the overall team goal.  Tell them what they are to do but not how they are to do it.

Innovation and creativity are nurtured when team members are safe in the knowledge of what they own and are responsible for, so they become free and open to work with others on new ideas.

The opposite is true when a lack of clarity in purpose and responsibility leads to:

…turf wars, low morale, bad politics and misguided strategies 

Chatham Sullivan – The Clarity Prinicple

In addition to the ability to create a lean team, an ancillary benefit of complete clarity of roles and responsibility is the opportunity it provides for flexible working and job sharing. 

Take the Operations Room of a warship for example, which is fully manned 24 hours a day.  Complete clarity in responsibilities of roles allows each operator to hand over their work quickly and without ambiguity when their watch (shift) ends.  The speed and effectiveness of these handovers is a vital capability that enables the ship to seamlessly operate in threat environments 24/7.

 

Furthermore, the quality of the work being handed over is laid bare in the handover process as both parties clearly share an understanding of their responsibilities.  This becomes a key driver in standards as each operator will seek to not let their Oppo (opposite number) down by handing them over a poor product.   

With the positive move towards more flexible workplaces, clarity of responsibilities is a powerful enabler for flexible work practices and job sharing.

 

The practicalities and tough conversations that will be required to get you there will be challenging but the end result more than worth it.  Your best people will thrive in the new environment and embrace the opportunity. The others? Perhaps they would be better off somewhere else.  Over to you, its all yours – you have the Ship.

That is all

Dickie

¹https://www.forbes.com/sites/palomacanterogomez/2019/06/07/the-5-rules-followed-by-accountable-leaders/#433d3265490f