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How Did That Happen?: Holding People Accountable for Results the Positive, Principled Way

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How Did That Happen provides a framework for setting expectations and then holding people accountable. The first half focuses on four stages of goal setting:
- FORM goals (Frame them, make them Obtainable, make them easy to Repeat, and make them Measurable)
- Communicate (explain the Why behind the goals to win the hearts and minds, not just the hands and feet)
- Align (getting agreement with stakeholders)
- Inspect (check in by Listening, Observing, measuring Objectively, and therefore Know how things are going)

The second half looks at breakdowns and helps people explore why a commitment has not been met. Four causes include:
- Motivation issues
- Skills
- Corporate culture
- Personal accountability

For new managers or others new to the topic, this would be a an accessible introduction and framework. If you've ready any other book on a related topic, such as Crucial Confrontations or even The One Minute Manager among others, or you've been exposed to SMART goals, I don't think you'll find much that is very knew other than some insightful stories, and acronyms that provide mnemonic keys to help with the process.

There simply is no magic to accountability. Clearly established expectations, realistic plans for action, and then honest assessments with positive and negative consequences are the backbone for any process of accountability.

If you've never read a book on the topic before, start with this one. If you have, then you'll maybe pick up a few tips, but I don't think this will revolutionize the way you work.

The Good: Provides managers and workers with models, self-assessments, charts, and lists to create and maintain an accountability sequence to establish accountability expectations and managing unmet expectations.

The Bad: Initially mundane, but How Did That Happen quickly turns a corner, becoming compelling as you find yourself doing mental checks to see if you've properly set expectations with your workers to instill accountability.

Action Item: Managers should buy this book to learn how to establish expectations of accountability and how to manage unmet expectations. Knowledge workers should also buy this book to understand how they can become a high performer, using the accountability models, self-assessments, and lists from this book as they develop their skill set.

Beyond The Oz Principle and Journey to the Emerald City: Connors and Smith's first two books are required management readings. Over the past twenty years, managers have learned some of the fundamentals of management in The Oz Principle and Journey to the Emerald City. The Oz Principleteaches steps to accountability that establishes the necessary foundation for organizations to build an accountable workforce. Journey to the Emerald Cityexplained the path organizations must take to create a culture of accountability. Like any good trilogy, How Did that Happen completes the accountability storyline by teaching managers how to hold people accountable for results. As new managers and workers come into organizations, getting results through accountability is a repeatable process, one that must be vigilantly assessed and reassessed to achieve results year after year.

In this book, Connor and Smith developed an easy to learn, but comprehensive model to explain what accountability is, why it may be lacking, how to create it, and how to manage it. How Did that Happen teaches "The Accountability Sequence." It's an ideal approach for organizations to create accountability for achieving results by holding others accountable in a positive, principled way. It teaches how to enable people to fulfill the expectations you have for them, while concurrently building a positive Accountability Connection. Below are the highlights of The Accountability Sequence:

* How to apply the Accountability Sequence Model to day-to-day accountability interactions with others
* How to use your Accountability Styles and hold others accountable in a positive way
* How to establish expectations that people want to fulfill
* How to manage unmet expectations and have the Accountability Conversation that leads to better, and more consistent results from the people on whom you depend
* How to establish positive Accountability Connections with everyone in your Expectations Chain
* How to improve your ability to hold others accountable in a way that motivates and produces results

How to Hold People Accountable for Results: How Did that Happen initially is bogged down in explaining why accountability maybe lacking your organization. Once you turn this corner, Connor and Smith outline their framework in two parts: The Outer Ring of establishing expectations and The Inner Ring of The Accountability Conversation to manage unmet expectations. The Outer Ringer of this framework explains how to establish expectations using four management techniques:

* Form expectations: Creating framable, obtainable, repeatable, and measurable expectations of your workforce
* Communicate expectations: Communicating key expectations with clarity, allowing people to understand what is expected and why it's important for them to follow through and deliver results
* Align expectations: Creating and maintaining alignment around those expectations with everyone who contributes to the expectations
* Inspect expectations: Assessing the condition of how closely key expectations are being fulfilled, ensuring continued alignment, providing support, reinforcing progress, and promoting learning to deliver results

Connor and Smith also provide invaluable assessments to assist managers during this phase of accountability with the following tools:

* Accountability Style Self-Assessment
* Clues to Assessing How Well You Form Expectations
* The Deliberate Leader Self-Test
* The Keeping-Up Quiz
* "How Often I get Surprised"
* Am I a Chaser?

How to Manage Unmet Expectations: Understanding that managing unmet expectations is most likely the hardest part of managing others, Connor and Smith explain The Accountability Conversation. What do you do when a worker isn't aligned to company or department expectations? How do you deal with a worker's competency problem?

The Inner Ring of The Accountability Sequence explains how to have the accountability conversation by using four solutions: training, accountability, culture, and motivation. The authors effectively provide you with a road map on avoiding conversation and cause killers, identifying the telltale measures of motivation, understanding the characteristics of accountability attitudes, and learning the triggers that move you from the Outer Ring to the Inner Ring. Connor and Smith provide the following additional assessment tools for managing unmet expectations:

* How Strong is Your Cause?
* How conscious Am I? Self-Test
* Which Way Does Accountability Flow in Your Organization
* Culture Questions
* Organizational Integrity Assessments

Connors and Smith have written another must-read business book that explains what accountability is, why it may be lacking, how to create it, and how to manage it. They provide invaluable models to explain how to establish and manage met and unmet expectations. As if this wasn't enough, they also provide self-assessment tools to help you determine your environment or situation, so you know what your next steps should be in managing expectations. If you're new to Connors and Smith's books, after reading How Did that Happen, you'll feel like you just came in to the last part of a trilogy, leaving you with a compulsion to learn what happened in parts one and two. Before you know it, you'll be reading The Oz Principle and Journey to the Emerald City.

I read this book thinking it would be your typical management/leadership book, but boy was I wrong. The authors do an excellent job of not just talking about principles of accountability, but they offer assessments and models that help the reader begin to become more accountable right away. This was my kind of book and one I would recommend to my friends.

How Did That Happen?: Holding People Accountable for Results the Positive, Principled Way by Roger Conners and Tom Smith is my most recent non-kindle read book. I say that because this is a prime example of a book that's better on paper than on a kindle because I was constantly going back to previous pages, underlining, circling, and generally marking up the book. While I'm sure I'll get used to those things on a kindle, this book's scars from my reading and writing in it are proof enough that print isn't dead!

The start of How Did That Happen?, where it talks about the title is a real eye-opener and a mindset changer. If I had to sum up the impact of the book in one line it would be way towards the front of the book where it suggests instead of looking at a problem or break-down of some sort and saying "How did that happen" we should ask "How did I let that happen?" Those two words are so powerful. It addresses where I so often see a breakdown in communication. That sort of personal accountability is, I believe, the hallmark of a good manager. If I find someone who does that automatically instead of blaming their employees, the weather, or the economy I'm thrilled and work hard to get out of their way and help them to be great.

One of the breakdowns that hit home the closest was when a manager will give vague expectations, unclear boundaries of responsibility and authority, and accountability and then be surprised later when expectations aren't met. Without giving clear, concise, and measurable outlines of my expectations my employees will find it hard to NOT disappoint me. I will be setting them up to fail over and over again by my own carelessness.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. I fully expect to see it in airports for years to come for business travelers to pick up and read on the way to wherever they're going.

Connors and Smith have done it again and added another weapon to the accountability arsenal. In The Oz Principle they helped us redefine our approach to personal accountability. In Journey To The Emerald City they outlined the process organizations need to take in order to manage culture to accountability. In this new offering they provide the tools to effectively manage the performance of those you work with. This book has application not only in the workplace but in our personal lives as well.

I was somewhat surprised to find that I'm on the "coerce and compel" end of the accountability style stick although my family found this to be an effective evaluation much to my chagrin. Realizing this I learned how to effectively help those around me meet the expectations I have of them and create a better relationship with coworkers and family.

I encourage anyone who's ever asked the question "How Did That Happen" to read this book and learn to ask instead "How Did I Let That Happen?" That mind shift might lead to better relationship not only in the workplace but on the home front as well.

I have been waiting for this book. I've always had trouble following up with my team without feeling like I'm nagging or don't trust them to do the job. This book provides language and a non-threating, easy to follow process that will be easy to sustain. This will even work on the home front!

What a great book. It was an easy read and easy to follow. I am looking forward to applying this ideology to my day-to-day routine. It was defiantly worth the money.

The principles defined in this book are simple and effective. It has been so hard for me to hold others accountable for their mistakes and get positive feedback. By reading this book I have learned how to do so. I consider myself lucky to have been given the chance to read this book. It will be incredibly beneficial for everyone. So many of us struggle with holding others accountable, but this book teaches us how to become more focused and understanding co-workers. The release of this book is exciting because of the simple principles it so clearly defines.

The book makes a persuasive case for why accountability is important in the opening chapters. It then proceeds to focus on four stages of managing expectations: (1) Forming expectations: Frame them, make them obtainable, repeatable and measurable; (2)Communicate expectations: Communicating what is expected and why it is important - win their hearts and minds; (3) Align expectations: reach agreements with everyone involved,(4) Inspect expectations: Assess how closely key expectations are being met and provide support. The second half of the book looks at reasons for Accountability fails and they include: 1) Lack of Skills/Training, 2) Poor Motivation, 3) Lack of Personal Accountability and 4) Ineffective Corporate culture. The authors outline a comprehensive model of accountability that will enable you to hold others accountable in a positive way - a model that motivates and produces better and more consistent results.

* This book the best I've read on the subject of Accountability.

* I do concur with their statement that "no other attribute of individual or organizational life contributes more to the success of individuals, teams, and organizations." Therefore this book would be a benefit to new managers as they develop their basic skills sets and help move seasoned managers to a Mastery level.

* The opening chapters do a terrific job in suggesting that the "command and control" style is ineffective and that one should re-frame their thinking after failure from "how did that happen" to "how did I let it happen" - the manager taking personal accountability for the failure rather than blaming the employee(s) or other factors

* A seasoned manager might find that there isn't much revolutionary that is presented here - clearly established and communicated expectations followed by real-time assessments of performance of expectations - with consequences to follow - form the core for any performance management system. However, we don't often execute in a consistent, scalable and positive manner using a disciplined end-to-end methodology and this is certainly the major draw card here with the suggested model. I did find myself doing mental loops throughout the book to assess whether I've properly set, communicated and inspected expectations.

* Authors offer considerable first-hand experience and credibility in the "Accountability Training" space. They have spent 20 years studying and teaching accountability. They share solid research. Authors use insightful examples to support their recommendations.

* The book includes valuable accountability self assessments (How Often I get Surprised; How Well you Form Expectations; Accountability "Style")

* The last 1/3 of the book get a bit long in the tooth (Training, Assessments, Culture) and I found myself wading through these chapters to finish.

* This is a good reference book which is better read in hard copy than on the Kindle - especially to fully leverage the assessment documents.

* My favorite passages in the book that summarize the authors key message are:

"Exactly how do we prevent the surprises that so often blindside us, despite all our best efforts to make things happen the way we expect them to happen? How can we improve our follow-up so that we get the results we want? And how do we do it without making people feel resentful, resistant, manipulated, and controlled?"

"True accountability is not about punishment. It is not about taking revenge against someone who has failed to meet your expectations. So, exactly what is it?...For some, accountability is a way to "act," a behavior you display only when threatened with punishment for poor performance. To others, accountability is an "attitude," a way of looking at your circumstances, good or bad, and taking the view that only you are responsible for what you do next and that blaming anyone else for what happens will simply waste time and energy. To us, accountability, in its truest and most authentic form, is a personal "attribute" that exemplifies who you are. It is "a way of being" that empowers you, each individual on your team and every single person in your organization, to meet and even surpass your highest expectations."

I found How Did That Happen to be very insightful. The focus on effective communication between people in the workplace is absolutely invaluable. This book delves into personality styles, and introduces concrete tools to work around issues we face on a daily basis to increase the company's bottom line and achieve results we never thought we could get. I would highly recommend organizational leaders read this book to gain a better understanding about how to more effectively manage employee expectations and boost morale. 5 Stars!!