On Delegating Accountability: II

In last week's post, I observed that the act of delegation results in a redistribution of responsibility, authority, and accountability across the people of the organization. Trouble comes when we attend only to the redistribution of responsibility, the "doing" part of the task, and then let custom and culture determine the redistribution of authority and accountability.

For example, many believe that delegating responsibility for execution of a task automatically transfers accountability for that task from the delegator to the delegatee. In most organizations, that is not the case. In most organizations, the delegator remains accountable for the task, and (if the delegator requires it) a new accountability is created. With respect to that new accountability, if the delegator requires it, the delegatee becomes accountable to the delegator for completing the task.

The key phrase in this description is "in most organizations." How delegation actually works in practice is so variable — even across different parts of the organization — that every description must be similarly qualified. To ensure the result you want when you delegate it's necessary to consider all three elements — responsibility, authority, and accountability. It's necessary to explicitly delegate each element.

Because these three concepts are so intertwined, confusing situations can easily arise. A full catalog of these confusions would be an enormous task because any given role can possess each of these three attributes — Responsibility, Authority, and Accountability — in various degrees.

A catalog of delegation end states

To How delegation actually works in practice is
so variable — even across different parts of the
organization — that every description must be qualifiedclarify the trouble that can arise from delegating without being specific about all three elements, I offer a catalog of eight possible states resulting from delegation. For simplicity, I'll consider only the "corner cases" in which the role of the delegatee possesses either a sufficient degree of a given attribute (represented as 1), or a clearly insufficient degree of that attribute (represented as 0). So, for example, the state "Not Responsible, Lacks Sufficient Authority, Not Accountable" would be 000, and "Not Responsible, Has Sufficient Authority, Not Accountable" would be 010. There are thus only eight delegation end states to consider.

Even though there are only eight states, representing them in a clear way is a bit of a challenge. For a diagrammatic representation, I follow the guidance of Lowy and Hood. [Lowy 2004] They describe a method they call "2x2 Thinking," which uses a 2x2 matrix to represent the space relevant to the problem at hand. In our case, the appropriate representation would be 2x2x2, but we can apply their 2x2 method for two kinds of delegation: with and without Accountability.

Specifically, we represent the four states of the space of Responsibility by Authority for the case of Zero Accountability, and a second set of four states for the case of Total Accountability.

Here they are in diagram form:

And now, verbally.

000 "Irrelevant and Out-of-the-Way" [Not Responsible, Lacks Sufficient Authority, Not Accountable]

Since the role isn't responsible, delegation of responsibility hasn't occurred, and we can expect inadequate results. Moreover, the role is not accountable for completion of the mission. Even if the incumbent could overcome the authority deficit, not being accountable for results exposes the role to an elevated risk of failure.

010 "Free to Go Rogue" [Not Responsible, Has Sufficient Authority, Not Accountable]

Since the role isn't responsible, delegation of responsibility hasn't occurred, and we ought not expect useful results. Although the role has the authority necessary to complete the mission, completion is unlikely because the role isn't accountable for completion of the mission. Moreover, because the role does have authority, this configuration is at high risk for abuse of that authority.

In this configuration, we haven't delegated the responsibility, but we have invested the role with authority. Since the role isn't accountable, the probability of abuse of that authority is elevated.

100 "Free to Give It a Try" [Is Responsible, Lacks Sufficient Authority, Not Accountable]

The incumbent is responsible, which means that delegation of responsibility has occurred. But since the incumbent lacks authority and is not being held accountable, the mission is unlikely to be completed in line with expectations.

This configuration can come about when a supervisor is reluctant to invest the delegatee with authority, for example, for fear of response by jealous peers of the delegatee.

110 "Corruptible" [Is Responsible, Has Sufficient Authority, Not Accountable]

The incumbent is responsible, which means that delegation of responsibility has occurred. And the incumbent also has the Authority needed to complete the mission. But since the incumbent is not accountable, he or she is free to use that authority to redefine the mission. Almost any result can follow.

001 "Fall Guy" [Not Responsible, Lacks Sufficient Authority, Is Accountable]

Since the role isn't responsible, delegation of responsibility hasn't occurred, and we ought not expect useful results. Holding the role's incumbent accountable for results is therefore unethical, because there has been no effective delegation, and the incumbent hasn't been invested with authority sufficient to produce the desired results.

Sadly, this situation is alarmingly common. For example, it occurs when a manager decides to hold Person A accountable for a mission, but (a) never actually announced that Person A would be responsible for that mission; and (b) never invested Person A with any of the authority needed to complete the mission.

011 "Minister Without Portfolio" [Not Responsible, Has Sufficient Authority, Is Accountable]

Since the role isn't responsible, delegation of responsibility hasn't occurred, and we ought not expect useful results. However, the role does have authority, and it is being held accountable. Some incumbents in these situations will pursue completion of what they regard as the mission, but since delegation hasn't occurred, the result might not be what the Delegator considered the mission to have been. This configuration is at elevated risk of having the incumbent define the mission according to personal preference rather than organizational purpose.

101 "Set Up to Fail" [Is Responsible, Lacks Sufficient Authority, Is Accountable]

The incumbent is responsible, which means that delegation of responsibility has occurred. But since the incumbent lacks sufficient authority, and is being held accountable, the incumbent is likely to feel "set up." This is a common perception among project managers and scrum masters.

To protect themselves, incumbents in these configurations try to find a mission they can accomplish with their inadequate authority, and which they can claim meets the objectives for which they're being held accountable. The key word here is "claim." The incumbent's goal is to find an objective that they can plausibly claim fulfills their responsibility, rather than one that does meet their responsibility.

111 "Empowered" [Is Responsible, Has Sufficient Authority, Is Accountable]

The incumbent is responsible, which means that delegation of responsibility has occurred. The incumbent has the necessary authority, and since the incumbent is being held accountable, he or she is more likely to pursue the mission. If the mission is well planned and adequately resourced, a favorable result is likely to follow.

Last words

Of the eight end states, the only one with a positive outlook is 111 Empowered, which is Responsible, has sufficient Authority, and is Accountable. Delegators generally know how to confer responsibility in an accountable way. The tricky part for delegators is conferring authority, which requires that the delegator make clear to one and all the delegatee's new responsibility.

But is that really so difficult? Is it anything more than a communication task? It is not. Delegators who find this communication difficult are most likely facing a problem of another kind — choosing the wrong delegatee, or skirting the rules, or violating a protocol. If the delegation is appropriate, communicating about it is straightforward.   First issue in this series   Top    Next Issue

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Footnotes

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