Accountability (3/3): Diagnostic and implementation guide

How to use this guide

Understanding patterns is one thing. Knowing which ones matter most for your organisation is essential for effective change.

This guide helps you identify which anti-patterns are costing you the most and which patterns will create the fastest flow of better value, sooner, safer, and happier (BVSSH) outcomes.

Most organisations have multiple accountability dysfunctions. The key is finding the constraints that, when addressed, unlock the most value.

Individual accountability patterns

Start here. Organisational patterns only work when individuals can operate effectively.

Pattern 1: Clarify outcomes continuously

Addresses anti-pattern: Confusion over outcomes.

Warning signals:

• Do stakeholders describe the same outcome using different metrics or language?
• Do progress conversations reveal misaligned mental models?
• Are requirements vague with success criteria that shift like sand?
• Do teams execute flawlessly on the wrong thing for months?

Action steps:

• Document success criteria using specific, measurable language that survives the telephone game.
• Test shared understanding regularly — can everyone articulate the same goals without prompting?
• When confusion emerges, use it as a prompt to strengthen clarity rather than evidence of failure.
• Establish regular alignment sessions focused on outcomes, not activities.

Remember: Outcomes over outputs. Start with why. Communicate relentlessly. Clarity is a continuous practice, not a destination.

Pattern 2: Invite participation

Addresses anti-pattern: Inflicted accountability.

Warning signals:

• Are people told they’re accountable with little genuine choice?
• Do you see compliance without commitment?
• Have talented people drifted into an “agentic state” — following orders without thinking?

Action steps:

• Apply “invite over inflict” when establishing accountability.
• Structure conversations around skills, time, and alignment — do they have what they need?
• Understand concerns and reservations. Identify what support would increase confidence.
• Make it safe to decline accountability if conditions aren’t right.
• Build intrinsic motivation by enabling autonomy, creating space for mastery, and clarifying purpose.

Remember: Invite over inflict. Appeal to intrinsic motivation. People over process.

Pattern 3: Match authority to accountability

Addresses anti-pattern: Accountability without authority.

Warning signals:

• Do accountable people need permission for routine decisions?
• Are they regularly blocked by organisational processes or hierarchy?
• Do people lack access to resources and stakeholders they need?

Action steps:

• Use intent-based leadership — move authority to where information is richest.
• Map decisions required for outcomes and explicitly delegate authority.
• Create minimal viable guardrails that enable safe autonomy.
• Focus on obstacle removal rather than detailed progress reporting.

Remember: Empowerment with guardrails. Intent-based leadership. Minimal viable compliance.

Pattern 4: Maintain supportive ownership

Addresses anti-patterns: Micromanagement masquerading as accountability and abdicating ownership.

Warning signals:

• Do leaders specify not only what but exactly how and when?
• Have teams become order-executors rather than problem-solvers?
• Do leaders disappear after delegating, only to reappear with blame?
• Are failures met with retroactive criticism rather than support?

Action steps:

• Stay visible after delegating without hovering — be “eyes on, hands off”.
• Focus on creating conditions for success, not controlling actions.
• When outcomes wobble, lean in with curiosity, not blame.
• Use leading indicators to sense and respond early.
• Replace status reports with obstacle-busting conversations.

Remember: Support over control. Learning over blame. Visibility over inspection.

Pattern 5: Optimise for learning and adaptation

Addresses anti-pattern: Rigid goal adherence.

Warning signals:

• Are goals treated as immutable contracts rather than hypotheses?
• Do teams continue pursuing objectives when evidence suggests they’re wrong?
• Are course corrections seen as failure rather than learning?
• Do you hear “we committed to this, so we must deliver it” regardless of new information?

Action steps:

• Stay curious about whether goals are complete and correct.
• Acknowledge that in emergent work, the path from A to B is a hypothesis.
• Make it safe to discover that course corrections are needed.
• Encourage open dialogue to test assumptions continuously.
• Focus on outcomes rather than outputs to create experimentation space.

Remember: Embrace emergence. Fast feedback and learning. Hypothesis-driven development.

Organisational accountability patterns

These patterns address system-level failures that trap good people in bad environments.

Pattern 6: Create value stream ownership

Addresses anti-pattern: The accountability hot potato.

Warning signals:

• Do critical outcomes get passed between departments like a hot potato?
• Does customer experience span multiple teams but nobody owns the end-to-end journey?
• When problems emerge, do meetings multiply without resolution?
• Are teams hitting local targets while global outcomes decay?

Action steps:

• Organise around customer value streams, not functional departments where possible.
• Create value stream owners who work across existing boundaries when restructuring isn’t feasible.
• Give these owners authority to prioritise work across departments and resolve conflicts.
• Think “network overlay” — agile connections between slower hierarchical structures.
• Measure end-to-end flow, not departmental efficiency.

Remember: Customer value flow over departmental efficiency. End-to-end ownership over functional excellence.

Pattern 7: Make value visible

Addresses anti-pattern: Success theatre.

Warning signals:

• Do dashboards glow green while customer satisfaction plummets?
• Do teams celebrate velocity targets while delivering features nobody uses?
• Does everyone perform well in isolation but collectively fail?
• Are meetings full of positive updates while something fundamental is broken?

Action steps:

• Measure outcomes that matter to customers, not just activities that feel productive.
• Make the connection between daily work and customer outcomes transparent.
• Create dashboards showing customer value delivery, not just team productivity.
• Use leading indicators that predict outcome success, not just output measures.

Remember: Outcomes over outputs. Customer value over activity metrics. Leading indicators over lagging measures.

Pattern 8: Build organisational memory

Addresses anti-pattern: The expertise trap.

Warning signals:

• Does critical knowledge live in individual heads?
• When people leave, do capabilities walk out with them?
• Do new leaders spend months figuring out what predecessors were thinking?
• Does knowledge hoarding feel safer than sharing?

Action steps:

• Capture not just what decisions were made, but why and in what context.
• Create systems for knowledge flow between people and persistence beyond tenure.
• Use decision records, context documentation, and communities of practice.
• Make onboarding about inheriting rich context, not starting from scratch.

Remember: Institutional memory over individual knowledge. Context over conclusions. Sustainable capability over heroic delivery.

Pattern 9: Build quality and safety into the system of work

Addresses anti-pattern: The approval death march.

Warning signals:

• Do good ideas die in approval processes?
• Does risk aversion masquerade as good governance?
• Does every innovation require sign-off from people who don’t understand the problem?
• Do teams learn to ask forgiveness rather than permission, or stop innovating?

Action steps:

• Build quality and compliance into daily work rather than inspecting at the end.
• Embed governance capability within teams through automation or close partnership.
• Replace approval gates with minimal viable guardrails.
• Make risk tolerance explicit through clear boundaries.
• Use transparency and peer accountability rather than permission-seeking.

Remember: Quality and safety built in, not inspected in. Shift left on compliance. Guardrails over approval gates.

Where to start

Use the diagnostic questions to identify which dysfunctions are costing you most. While every context is unique, these common patterns can guide your starting point.

If teams are confused about what success looks like

Consider starting with Pattern 1 (Clarify outcomes continuously). Without clear outcomes, even perfect execution may not deliver value. Pattern 7 (Make value visible) can help make success measurable and transparent.

Once clarity improves, Pattern 4 (Maintain supportive ownership) can create safety for course corrections when outcomes shift.

If good people are trapped by bad processes

Pattern 3 (Match authority to accountability) often removes the biggest blockers to people doing good work. Pattern 9 (Build quality and safety into the system of work) can eliminate permission-seeking for routine decisions.

As frustrations reduce, Pattern 2 (Invite participation) may help rebuild engagement and ownership.

If value is getting lost in handoffs between departments

Pattern 6 (Create value stream ownership) typically has high leverage on customer outcomes. Pairing it with Pattern 7 (Make value visible) can help identify where flow breaks down.

Pattern 8 (Build organisational memory) becomes important as ownership spans boundaries and knowledge needs to flow between teams.

If the organisation keeps repeating mistakes

Pattern 5 (Optimise for learning and adaptation) can help build capability to sense and respond faster than problems compound. Pattern 8 (Build organisational memory) helps capture lessons that stick.

Pattern 4 (Maintain supportive ownership) makes it safer to surface early warning signals before they become crises.

Choose your own adventure

Remember, your context matters. Use these patterns as starting points for experimentation, not rigid implementation plans.

What progress looks like

As you experiment with changes, watch for these signals:

Individual level: People proactively raise risks rather than waiting to be asked. Failures become learning conversations, not blame exercises. Teams naturally align efforts with customer value.

Organisational level: Decisions happen closer to the work and customer. Knowledge flows between people and persists beyond individual tenure. Innovation accelerates as quality and safety become built-in.

System level: Value flows end-to-end without getting lost in handoffs. Leading indicators predict and prevent customer-impacting problems. The organisation learns and adapts faster than competitors.

Avoid these traps

The big bang approach: Trying to adopt all the patterns all at once. Instead, start small, build capability, then scale.

Pattern without purpose: Implementing without connecting to customer outcomes. Instead, always start with why.

Change without champions: Patterns need people who understand both the problem and the solution.

Discussion starters

For teams:

• When accountability goes wrong, is it usually a people problem or system problem?
• What would you need to feel confident taking accountability for outcomes rather than activities?
• Where do we see good people getting trapped in bad processes?

For leadership:

• Which accountability practices optimise for control versus outcomes?
• How do our systems enable or constrain people from taking real ownership?
• What would change if we measured customer value delivered rather than tasks completed?

Resolving the accountability paradox

Individual patterns create capable people. Organisational patterns create systems that enable those people to deliver valuable outcomes. Neither works without the other.

When both levels work together, you get good people in good systems, delivering results that matter. That’s accountability done right — not command and control, but the conditions for value to flow.

Further reading

• Sooner Safer Happier, Jonathan Smart et al.
• Turn the Ship Around!, L. David Marquet.
• Team of Teams, Stanley McChrystal.
• The Fearless Organization, Amy Edmondson.