From factories to Parliament: TT needs accountability

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Up and down the country, from Parliament and boardrooms to fields and factories, we don’t keep our word.

Monday’s election brought the usual reminder of the gulf between election promises and reality. But this problem goes beyond just politics. It is universal.

As a society we abhor commitment of any kind, whether it is showing up to a lunch, meeting someone on time, sticking to work hours, paying suppliers, starting projects or implementing grand strategy. I am as guilty as anyone else. Several times I’ve heard the whooshing sound of deadlines flying past, much to my editor’s chagrin.

We are engaged in a constant negotiation to commit as little as possible and hold ourselves to the least amount of accountability. The result: a complete inability to plan almost anything. We instead construct elaborate fictions in the form of promises uninformed and unblemished by experience or data.

Whether it is starting a new business, exploring a new market or trying an innovative policy, managing risk is crucial to economic and personal growth. But without the ability to plan or make informed guesses, risks become more uncertain. We therefore retreat from risk and any possibility of growth.

Why is it so difficult for us to make meaningful promises and stick to them? The answer is fear. We are afraid of anger, punishment or rejection if we don’t appease people with fine promises. Instead, we avoid them, burying our heads in the sand instead of accepting responsibility when we inevitably break our promises. Collectively this corrodes the trust and hope so vital to development.

The whole enterprise is enabled by the fact that basic performance tracking is largely absent from our organisations, beginning with the government. It should be relatively simple to ask for a status report on each manifesto promise and track its status on a monthly or quarterly basis. If the government themselves are not forthcoming, we can always whip out the Freedom of Information Act.

Technology is so critical to accountability because it extracts the ambiguity inherent in personal reports and allows targets to be tracked with precise numbers. When put into action, technology works. Just the other day a friend of mine was relatively impressed to find a leak fixed within less than a day of his uploading a picture to the Water and Sewerage Authority’s app.

As the World Bank has pointed out, when citizens can directly see information, monitor activities, and supply real-time feedback, it makes a considerable difference to how we interact with government.

And as customers or employers, we want the same thing.

One reason we struggle to commit is that we don’t know how long, or what resources we need to get things done. What scares us is that our early estimates will most likely be wrong, resulting in angry customers or voters with new proof that we’ve missed their deadlines. But this can be overcome by being conservative in initial estimations, and gradually improving them as we collect new data.

Nasty surprises are usually avoided when both parties are involved in setting targets, agree at the outset and are upfront about what support they need.

As the chair of Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative, Rosabeth Kanter, stresses: “The tools of accountability – data, details, metrics, measurement, analyses, charts, tests, assessments, performance evaluations – are neutral. What matters is their interpretation, the manner of their use, and the culture that surrounds them. In declining organisations, use of these tools signals that people are watched too closely, not trusted, about to be punished. In successful organisations, they are vital tools that high achievers use to understand and improve performance regularly and rapidly.”

How can we break our association between accountability and punishment? Kanter suggests starting with questions, not blame. Opportunities for review and accountability should focus on improvement and solutions.

Most business leaders might well roll their eyes: “going soft won’t work here.” Quite the contrary. This approach is about equipping teams with every possible tool so that no one has any excuse to achieve anything other than excellence. This seems the right time to drop in that old cliche: accountability starts at the top.

Now there are times when you need to ditch a supplier or fire someone, but not before doing everything possible: set clear expectations, support with adequate resources, track targets and offer frequent feedback.

This goes beyond business or government. It strikes at the heart of our collective psyche. We must remove the fear and insecurity that is strangling our society; expressing itself in equal parts rage and passivity.

By extracting fear from measurement, we can restore trust and accountability.

Kiran Mathur Mohammed is a social entrepreneur, economist and businessman. He is a former banker, and a graduate of the University of Edinburgh.