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How the Accountability Scorecard works

The Accountability Scorecard^™

Closing YOUR Accountability Gap^™

Promise-Based Management

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generate a high energy sense-of-urgency to execute your strategy…

Organization's with a serious intention for extraordinarily high performance – reaching or even going beyond the goals and objectives they set for themselves – requires a new approach to managing their “relationship” to accountability.

The gap in accountability accounts for over 87% of companies who cannot and do not execute their strategic plans.

Because business is conducted internally and externally through a network of conversations (most of them we aren’t consciously aware of) we need to invent and manage a new conversation to help us change the way we relate to accountability.

CEO’s tell us that what they want most: is a restored sense of control over their employee’s productive use of time - and eager responsible employees who make commitments to perform and keep those commitments.

The Accountability Scorecard^™ is built on a simple management principle: Stop talking about what you're going to do – and start making authentic promises to take action – then - take action.

Here's how you can do that…

In business the ‘Conversation for Action’ is the bread and butter of Accountability. A conversation for action is a promise that calls an individual forward to be in action.

Nothing matters more in management than to know that employees will take the actions necessary for accomplishing the mission of the company – and to never lose that focus.

Accountability empowers your best employees and boosts the performance of your underperformers.

If you're objective is to build a great company – it’s essential you manage your “Accountability Gap”.

With Promise-Based Management our focus is on promises (no surprise there). But what's important to understand is that ‘promises’ are corporate assets and you need to manage them as effectively as you manage all other resources in your organization.

There are five steps to effective Promise-Based Management.

Make a promise. Make clear promises tied to annual goals of the organization.

Publish a Promise. Publish promises publicly so that everyone can see who’s pulling their weight. Attach promises to something physical and visible to everyone so there’s no question that there is a promise that was made.

Journal a Promise. Journal promises to keep them front-and-center so they don’t disappear or go out of existence.

Act on a Promise. Complete promises on time to maintain integrity.

Measure a Promise. Feedback is the critical to consistency and reinforcement.

The Accountability Scorecard™ method is especially effective for teams:

Individuals can contribute meaningful actions to a team intention.

Dashboard feedback graphics are used as an indicator of team progress.

The total of each individual’s performance = whole team results.

Using the Accountability Scorecard is surprisingly simple when you follow the simple steps:

First, complete a strategy that your team can align on and are passionate about. This isn’t just an exercise of goal setting. In order to be effective, teams need to know why they operate the way they do currently. And then create a new future for themselves; a workplace worth working in and a team worth being on.

Once you have your strategy you can open your Accountability Scorecard™ and begin the scorecarding process by entering your ‘Focus’ for the year and your goals – assigning a champion to each goal.



With your goals established and recorded, it’s then time to set your first months promises.

Under each goal team members enter the promises that will move the team closer to those goals.

Then, after the promise period (typically a month) is complete the team reconvenes and assigns a percentage of completion to each of the promises. When the percentages are automatically totaled, the result appears in the monthly column graph at the top of the page.

While Accountability Scorecarding is simple, the most important aspect to remember is that the scorecard is simply an ‘existence system’. When you make a promise to take action – unless you attach it to something (in this case the scorecard) it will go out of existence. That’s the nature of conversations for action. Unless they have a place where everyone can see them – they disappear.

When you're ready to give Accountability Scorecarding a try - call us at 713-974-0464 or contact us by email and we will be happy to explore with you whether Accountability Scorecarding is a fit for you and your company.

Accountability Scorecard includes unlimited use of the Scorecard software and a workbook for each team member placed on the scorecard system. We recommend you do not exceed 15 – 20 people per team on any measurement system.

Cost per seat - $15 per month with a $250 set up for the system. All support is included. Coaching can be arranged at $330 per hour. You should plan on spending 2 -3 hours of coaching over a 3 month period when you implement the Accountability Scorecard into your organization.

Other information on promises and promise management:

Read what others have written about Promises being essential to effective management:

Seth Godin the Marketing Guru on his blog comments about promises as they relate to marketing: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/01/making-promises.html

Also recommended for reading:

         ‘The Anatomy of a Promise’

         The Essence of Execution’

          Harvard Business Press www.harvardbusinessonline.com

          Product Number: R0704E

          Authors: Donald Sull and Charles Spinosa

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