The Chief Psychology Officer

Ep17 Creating a Culture of Accountability

• Dr Amanda Potter CPsychol • Season 1 • Episode 17

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With quiet quitting being a hot topic in both business and HR recently, many might wonder what how responsibility and accountability influence their workplaces, colleagues and themselves. In this episode, Dr Amanda Potter is being interviewed by Tim Hepworth to talk about how to build a culture of accountability that leads to a thriving organisation and engaged employees. They will explore this through the lens of psychology, neuroscience, and topics like whistleblowing, wellbeing and inclusion.

The Chief Psychology Officer website is now available https://www.thecpo.co.uk/   Please like and follow Zircon for more podcasts and articles at https://www.linkedin.com/company/zircon-consulting-ltd/

If you have questions or would like to speak to Amanda please contact her via LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/amandapotterzircon or via email: TheCPO@zircon-mc.co.uk.

For more information on Quiet Quitting and Quiet Fleecing, Amanda was interviewed for the following article. https://www.hcamag.com/ca/specialization/leadership/quiet-fleecing-are-you-robbing-top-talent-of-time-and-money/423524

Timestamps

Creating a Culture of Accountability

·       00:00 – Introduction to Culture of Accountability

·       00:56 – Responsibility vs. Accountability

·       01:57 – Owning your mistakes and successes

·       03:15 – What’s stopping us?

·       03:53 – Whistleblowing

·       05:44 – Managing Expectations

·       06:26 – It’s a cultural thing…

·       07:11 – Specifics?

Communication is key

·       08:06 – The meek, shall not inherit the business

·       08:53 – I need commitment first…

·       10:07 – I don’t understand what you haven’t told me!

·       11:00 – Wellbeing

·       12:49 – Times they are a changin’

·       13:39 – Trust

·       14:42 – They are tracking us!

·       16:19 – Ideals when working from home

What seems to be the problem?

·       18:31 – Undermining Accountability

·       19:31 – Top-down control

·       20:29 – Bias

·       21:08 – Consensus seems to suggest…

·       22:06 – Confirmation bias

·       23:15 – Bystander Apathy revisited

·       24:19 – Fundamental Attribution Error

·       25:08 – Neuroscience!

Let’s finish this discussion in a quiet place…

·       27:44 – I’m with (functionally) stupid

·       29:28 – Burnout revisited

·       30:00 – Shh! I’m trying to quit

·       31:11 – The increase of quiet quitting

·       35:47 – Summary of undermining accountability

·       36:32 – Positives of accountability

·       37:38 – The end.

Episodes are available here https://www.thecpo.co.uk/

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Tim Hepworth:

Hello, and welcome to this, the latest episode in the Chief Psychology Officer Podcast, with me, Tim Hepworth, and joined by Dr. Amanda Potter, chartered psychologist and CEO of Zircon. This week we're going to be talking about accountability. So, Amanda, why have you selected this particular topic?

Dr Amanda Potter:

A client recently asked me to run an event on accountability. The client is Robert Half. It started me doing my research and my thinking around creating an environment or creating a culture of accountability. And so I've been doing quite a lot of work to truly understand the difference between responsibility and accountability and how we can encourage people to take more ownership at work.

Tim Hepworth:

What is the difference then between responsibility and accountability?

Dr Amanda Potter:

So all of us have responsibilities. And once we finished a task or we finished a project, we quite easily strike off the task from a list and we believe it's no longer our responsibility. We've completed and closed that project or opportunity. The difference is when you're accountable, the ownership doesn't stop. You continue to invest in the problem and the solution and you own it. And you focus more on the outcomes rather than your contribution and what you were responsible for.

Tim Hepworth:

So being accountable then is a lot more than just being responsible for a particular task.

Dr Amanda Potter:

I think so. And I think we use the terms interchangeably, which is a little bit confusing. And I think we see that quite a lot in psychology. But I believe from doing the research that to take accountability means that you are going a step further than being responsible.

Tim Hepworth:

Yeah, I heard a nice quote that the difference between accountability and responsibility lies in what takes place after the completion of a task, which is what you were just saying. You're responsible for completing the task, yet you're accountable for the results. So accountability basically means owning your successes as well as your failures.

Dr Amanda Potter:

I completely agree. And that's a great quote because it, of course, very neatly links into the concept of psychological safety as well, which is all about encouraging people to speak up and own their errors or mistakes or failures. What we're trying to do in this podcast is help people understand how we can create the environment or the culture of accountability. And so it's not just about being accountable themselves, it is very much about taking a holistic approach and encouraging other people to take accountability. To do that, we need to be inspiring, we need to excite people, we need to give them purpose, we need clarity. And it's most definitely not about micromanaging people or telling them what to do or telling them to take responsibility for their results or responsibility for their job because this could undermine a trusting environment. What we need to do is understand some of the things that might inhibit or stop us from creating an environment where people want to be accountable for outcomes and want to own their successes and their failures versus people and teams that take responsibility for the job and do what's required, but only what's required because they're being told to do so.

Tim Hepworth:

Yeah, that's interesting. You're talking about duty of care. It certainly seems to me that when you take personal accountability for things, then you've got to be quite courageous. It takes quite a bit of courage to act upon a problem and make a change. And the example that immediately comes to my mind is whistleblowing. Some research in the US shows that whistleblowing, far from being a negative for a company, is actually healthy. I think they analyzed nearly two million internal whistleblown reports over about a thousand publicly traded firms in the US. And it found that the whistleblowing report volume is associated with fewer government fines and lawsuits. So the more employees were actually using the whistleblown hotlines, the fewer the lawsuits that actually ensued. And at the end of the day, the less money the companies lost.

Dr Amanda Potter:

You're completely right. Whistleblowing is a term that seems negative, but actually can create really positive impacts for organizations. What's interesting about this is the concept of whistleblowing and level in the organization. When senior leaders speak up and whistleblow or challenge behaviour in their organization, this is deemed and seen to be positively by their peers. However, when junior colleagues do the same, this is sometimes perceived negatively. And this is due to the expectation we have of our senior leaders. We expect them to speak up, to challenge, to question, and to be brave and courageous. But there's a real implication for us holding people to account and the role of psychological safety in whistleblowing, because that difference in attitude suggests that we have an expectation of our senior leaders to create an environment of psychological safety to speak up, to be brave, to be courageous, to whistleblow. But we are not communicating the same expectation of people at the lower end of the organization who, in fact, we do want to also do the same thing. And so we need to challenge those biases that we have and encourage everybody to be up front, to be brave, to be courageous.

Tim Hepworth:

It takes a lot more courage for the people lower down the organization, because as you say, you know, we have different expectations of them. And I guess that's where there are such things as whistleblowing hotlines that are to an extent anonymous.

Dr Amanda Potter:

You can see why, because very often the things that they are challenging make them desperately uncomfortable or could put other people's careers at risk. So I completely agree. I think the more junior you are in an organization, or if you haven't been in that organization for a very long time, it would be harder for you to believe in your ability to challenge, to question, and to whistleblow. But actually, I think it's everybody's responsibility.

Tim Hepworth:

So we've been uh talking about accountability, but really the title of this podcast is the creation of a culture of accountability. So, what does it mean to create a culture of accountability within a company?

Dr Amanda Potter:

When you foster a culture of accountability, your people talk openly about issues so they feel psychologically safe and they work together to find solutions to problems. All employees take ownership to deliver results, and they hold themselves and each other responsible for their actions and accountable for the outcomes. So accountable workplaces help to foster an environment of safety, of growth and improvement.

Tim Hepworth:

So, are there any sort of specifics there in creating this culture of accountability?

Dr Amanda Potter:

The specific benefits of the environment or culture is that it increases corporate alignment and job satisfaction. People are clearer about what they're doing, they understand the role they're playing and the benefit they are bringing to an organization. It improves employee interaction and trust because people are talking openly and therefore they're being much more upfront about how they're feeling. As a result, there's increased engagement and productivity, which is of course fantastic. And finally, as a result of this environment, the business will start to attract people who are higher performing and it will encourage people who are not as productive or not as prone to working hard. It will encourage them to leave. And so it creates this high performance culture, which is just fantastic.

Tim Hepworth:

That's an interesting one. Makes the poor performers leave. What's the rationale behind that?

Dr Amanda Potter:

What happens is when you are working in a fast-paced, dynamic, decisive environment, people who are not comfortable working in that way deselect themselves and look for environments that are more comfortable and more fitting with their preferred style or their preferred ways of working. And our research has identified that environments that are very much driven by culture of accountability are indeed environments where people own their decisions, they're prepared to make decisions at pace, they speak up, they challenge each other, they have clarity and have purpose, and they feel like they're part of something that's important.

Tim Hepworth:

Right. So, how do you actually go about building this utopia of accountability?

Dr Amanda Potter:

So the first thing we need to do is make sure that at the very top of the organization, the senior leaders are role modeling accountability. They're not just being responsible for their piece of the jigsaw, but they're very much taking accountability for outcomes and they're thinking about the whole organization. And so leaders need to show their commitment to the business and to the people. And this commitment builds trust and they need to make sure that they communicate the goals very clearly. They accept responsibility for the task that they're required to deliver, but more importantly, they take accountability of the outcomes and what the business is delivering as a whole. So the next one is, and I've mentioned it a number of times, is psychological safety. So speaking up, questioning, challenging, and being prepared to admit mistakes. The third one is having a clear purpose and goal setting. Now, this is very much the foundation of creating a trusting environment.

Tim Hepworth:

I was reading in preparation for this, a little article by Anne Lure, and I wrote these things down. According to her, 93% of employees don't even understand what their organization is trying to accomplish. So how can they align themselves with that goal if they don't understand it? In conjunction with that though, 85% of leaders are not clearly defining what their employees should be working on. Now they're huge numbers, and it's basically saying the leaders aren't making it clear what they want their workers to do, and I think therefore, unsurprisingly, most of the workers don't understand what it is that they're supposed to be doing. I think they're quite damning statistics.

Dr Amanda Potter:

They really are, and so without clarity, we cannot create an environment of ownership and accountability. And so that's a really truly important one. So clear purpose, clarity, and goal setting is a real foundation of creating an environment of accountability. The next one is looking after the well-being and mental fitness of employees or resilience. And this really relates back to the work that we've done on resilience and procrastination because we found a link between positive and negative affect and people's preparedness to make decisions. And in that research, we found that people who experience positive emotions and create the environment that helps them to feel good about themselves and about their work are more likely to make decisions at work. And therefore, looking after ourselves, looking after our mental health, making sure that we turn up for work refreshed and we eat well, we sleep well, and so on, prepares us for our day. And it has a significant impact on our ability to take responsibility for decisions and to make decisions. So just to expand on that research, we conducted it with 400 professionals using two of our B Talent questionnaires, Decision Styles and the Resilience Questionnaire. And then we found that people who are prone to negative emotions and can be hesitant, pessimistic, self-conscious, or worried tend to question their ability to make decisions, which slows down their commitment and has an impact on their ability to be accountable, to take accountability and to own the problem or the outcome. If we're not looking after ourselves and we're low on resilience, this can impact our thoughts and our affect, and it's difficult to see the good in the situation. And our research has shown that this really does impact our ability and our preparedness to take accountability or to be responsible for a task. The real message is to look after ourselves and to be as resilient and healthy as we possibly can be.

Tim Hepworth:

We've been living in turbulent times these last few years. We're in a post-pandemic world. Well, in fact, are we in a post-pandemic world? I think as at time of recording, COVID seems to be rearing its ugly head again. But uh hopefully we're getting towards the end of this. But during that time, the world of work significantly changed, with working from home being a big feature of people's lives. Now though, it turns out that in the UK at least, 25% of people want to go back to the office. And in the USA, only 20% of people there want to go back to work full-time in the office. And most people would much prefer to work in a hybrid way. That's going to give us problems, is it, in an accountability framework? How do we create a culture of accountability in this hybrid world of work?

Dr Amanda Potter:

It should have probably been first on my list, but it's trust. And trust is fundamental in a hybrid world for a culture of accountability. And when we master the harmony of trust and accountability, what will happen is we'll get really high productivity and we'll get a sense of ownership and agility from employees. But sadly, in this hybrid world, we often see the opposite. We see managers feeling quite uncomfortable about the productivity of their employees. And so they take steps that undermines that trust. For example, I know of a single client who I've talked to recently who is tracking the passes of their employees to see how many days on average each month they are actually going into the office and they are collecting that data without employees knowing. I suppose it seems obvious if you've got a pass and you're tapping into work that they might be collecting that data. But it was a surprise to me when I was told. So, Tim, have you got any examples of how employees might be tracked from home?

Tim Hepworth:

Yeah, I mean, uh obviously I'm more from the technical standpoint, but I know of quite large companies, won't mention any names, but they end up with software being installed on uh PCs that goes to the lengths of checking whether their mouse is moving the prescribed amount in an hour's worth of work to check that they're working, which seems to me very big brother 1984, and in no way whatsoever says to an employee, I trust that you have my BDI looking over your shoulder 24 hours a day.

Dr Amanda Potter:

And it's a really good point because managers who demonstrate that they trust their staff get much higher levels of productivity and ownership and accountability from those people. But they need to make it obvious. Sometimes managers fail to actively say, I trust you, I believe in you, I understand that you're working from home, but I know you're working extremely hard and you're doing everything you can to deliver. Rather, they show signs that they think that those people might be fitting work around their personal life way too much. And so I think the message here is that if you want to create an environment of trust in a hybrid world, you need to be much more proactive in articulating that you trust that individual and that you believe in them and that you know they're working hard and that you are grateful for the contribution that they're making rather than looking skeptical or questioning, because the more trust we give, the more trust we get back.

Tim Hepworth:

Yeah, it goes back to what you were saying before about the employee being told what's expected of them. If the employee knows exactly what's expected of them, then they don't need as much oversight. And so this hybrid working and working from home, you're basically saying to somebody, this is what you need to do. I trust you to get the job done. If people feel safe and trusted, then surely that's a good thing. Surely, you know, people are actually going to be doing more work, not less. I've worked from home for for a long time, and I would definitely say I do more work in a day than I would if I was in an office, notwithstanding the fact that I don't have to do any travelling. But I find it not a problem because I've always worked in places where I've been trusted to actually do the work.

Dr Amanda Potter:

I think what we're really showing here is that when we get it right, we create an environment where people feel like they belong to a team or to an organization. And belonging will be a topic of a future podcast. But how can we create an environment where people feel like they're part of the solution, that what they contribute makes a difference? If we can do that and they feel like they're part of something important, they can express their opinions, they can contribute in a positive way and feel comfortable to be themselves, then they're likely to belong. And so if people can work from home and they feel trusted to do the work, to do a good job, then they're more likely to feel this sense of belonging. And there is a clear relationship between belonging and accountability.

Tim Hepworth:

Definitely. I mean, I think if you feel more invested in the company, you are gonna just engender yourself with that feeling of accountability and responsibility as well. I think the two probably mix together there quite a bit.

Dr Amanda Potter:

I really see it in our business. I can genuinely say that within our business, everybody in our team works extremely hard and is, I believe, incredibly committed and they take accountability of the outcomes. They're not just responsible and do the job. I really believe they take accountability, but I hope that's because we have worked really hard to create that sense of trust. Everybody works from home. We're now a completely virtual business since COVID and we closed our office, as you know, two years ago. But actually, I hope we're creating that sense of belonging.

Tim Hepworth:

What sort of things undermine accountability?

Dr Amanda Potter:

So I've got a few things that I think undermine accountability. I've just listed them to start with so we can go through each of them. The first one is when there's a very top-down, controlling or consensus-driven culture. So either you're told what to do or the leadership team are incredibly consensus-driven and they can't decide what to do. The second one is our own personal biases or barriers. The third is functional stupidity. The next one is depletion or burnout, which we've talked about a little bit in terms of the positive enabler of accountability is mental health and mental fitness, but actually, inhibitor is depletion or burnout. And the last one is really topical in the press at the moment, which is quiet quitting.

Tim Hepworth:

Quiet quitting. I think I think I'd quite like to discuss that or let's do that a little bit later.

Dr Amanda Potter:

So it'd be great if we could go through each of those in turn, if that's okay. So the top-down controlling environment undermines accountability when organizations are way too focused on metrics. For example, balance scorecards. Organizations that obsess with metrics and goals and process improvements and tracking everything sends messages to employees that they don't trust them to take ownership for the results and the outcomes themselves. What we need to do is get the right balance. Of course, it is important to track to monitor and to have data, but if we over-monitor and over-track and over-control, we get that sense of micromanagement, which can really undermine our ability to own the outcome because we have a bias which is bystander apathy. We think it's someone else's problem. If they're tracking it, they're monitoring it, they can get on with it.

Tim Hepworth:

So you talked about biases there. What's the link then between accountability and bias?

Dr Amanda Potter:

So the link between accountability and bias is that biases are shortcuts. They're ways of processing information and helping us understand the world. And all of us are prone to them. But there are a couple of biases that particularly inhibit our ability or our propensity to take ownership and accountability for things. It almost helps us to avoid and to stay in the shadows rather than putting ourselves forward. But we'll come to those in a moment. The other culture that might undermine accountability is when there's a very consensus-driven culture. Organizations that are incredibly consensus-driven are often organizations that make significant differences in society, whether it's to people's health or to the environment or to well-being. But that consensus-driven culture undermines people's ability to take personal accountability for decisions and for outcomes. And so we need to encourage from very much from the top-down leaders to take ownership, to make decisions and to be bold, because it sends messages through the organization that that is a good thing for people to own the outcomes, to own their decisions. So I've mentioned the top-down controlling environment or the consensus-driven environment or culture undermining accountability. The next one are our personal barriers to objectivity, in other words, our cognitive biases. A couple of the biases that particularly are relevant for accountability are the first one, which is confirmation bias. There was a German utility company, I won't mention the name, they invested$10 billion in constructing a conventional power generation facility over five years. Now that power generation facility was never used. It was because they should have switched to renewables. The reason why they didn't was due to confirmation bias. The subordinates in the organization doubted the judgments rather than disagree. They didn't take accountability, they didn't challenge, and they didn't question. They just went ahead with the decision and they helped to build and implement the$10 billion plan, even though they didn't believe it was the right thing to do. So they were demonstrating this status quo or confirmation bias.

Tim Hepworth:

Confirmation bias. Where's the confirmation there? Is it that, well, this is what we've always done, so it must be right? Is that what you mean?

Dr Amanda Potter:

It's about avoiding mistakes to preserve autonomy and consistency. It's to confirm what we've had and what we've already got rather than to challenge. So it's about keeping the status quo and keeping what we have currently.

Tim Hepworth:

Right. Yeah, I get it.

Dr Amanda Potter:

The next example is bystander apathy. When we have bystander apathy, this is when we have multiple people working on a project, and everybody thinks that someone else is going to take responsibility for the decision or for the results or the outcome. So if we were working on a project, Tim, and you and I had similar roles and we're both program leads, I might be thinking, well, Tim is much better equipped to take this decision and to take that part of the project forward because he's the technical lead and I don't feel fully equipped. So I'm going to just leave it to Tim. As a result, I'm going to be a bystander and I'm going to feel apathy around that decision making because I believe someone else is better equipped.

Tim Hepworth:

Is that shirking responsibility?

Dr Amanda Potter:

Byster apathy comes from a good position of I don't think I'm the right person to deal with this, and someone else might be better equipped to support or make that decision or to help that person rather than it being lazy or complacent, but actually that they feel that someone else would be better placed. The third one is fundamental attribution error. So when someone delivers you a report with mistakes in, you make a judgment about their quality, their standards. But when you deliver a report with mistakes in it, you justify those mistakes through the amount of work that you had on or how late you had to work or the fact that you're working against an 80-20 rule and surely it's okay. But when we use the fundamental attribution error, what we're doing is we're making excuses. We justify rather than learn or take accountability because we're quite tough or hard on other people, but we justify our own mistakes or or find reasons for why we might not have delivered something to the same standard.

Tim Hepworth:

And that is definitely another example of a bias, isn't it?

Dr Amanda Potter:

It is, absolutely.

Tim Hepworth:

What role does neuroscience play in terms of accountability?

Dr Amanda Potter:

Well, it completely relates to the biases that we've just been talking about. And I know we're only halfway through the list of what undermines accountability, but in relation to the biases, what happens when we falter? For example, when we procrastinate or when we diffuse responsibility and we don't take ownership, I believe from the research, it's because we don't release enough dopamine. For example, the research has shown that procrastinators don't release enough dopamine. And dopamine comes from the reward from achieving activities from tasks and little wins. And the level of dopamine in our brains can have a significant impact or effect on the decisions we make and our activity levels. And so, therefore, people with higher levels of dopamine are motivated to make decisions, to take accountability for outcomes, because they focus on the benefits that arise from that accountability, from those tasks or from those decisions, rather than focusing on the negatives. If you remember, when we fail or get something wrong, the nervous system releases acetylcholine and epinephrine. Acetylcholine helps with focus or error margin, and epinephrine or adrenaline helps us with attention. And we need both of these things in combination with dopamine to prime the brain for plasticity and learning. In other words, my belief is that in order to take true accountability, firstly, we need to be open to failure and we need to learn and we need to destigmatize failure. But we actually need to prepare ourselves or give ourselves the opportunity to have those little wins so that we release just a little bit of dopamine, which motivates us to take even more accountability. So breaking tasks up into smaller chunks will help us to release little amounts of dopamine, which will motivate us to just keep going. So don't go for the big tasks, break them down into smaller tasks.

Tim Hepworth:

We've covered a lot of this in previous podcasts. I think it was the one on psychological safety that what you've just said there first appeared.

Dr Amanda Potter:

Yes, it did. And I think also it came up in the podcast around destigmatizing failure as well. But we haven't done the whole list, Tim. So in terms of the things that undermine accountability, we've talked about top-down controlling or consensus-driven cultures. We've talked about the biases, status quo, bystander apathy, fundamental attribution error. But the next one is functional stupidity. And functional stupidity was coined by Bertrand Russell. And basically, the way Professor Andre Spicer articulates functional stupidity is just wonderful. He articulates it in terms of when smart people are encouraged not to think or reflect for themselves at work. Teams that are functionally stupid are teams that are very narrow in their thinking, they're very predictable with their decision making. They follow the status quo, which is the bias we've been talking about, they trust the community without question, and they follow culture, rules, templates as natural, and they don't ask why. So they're very narrow. What this does is it undermines that accountability and ownership and the preparedness of people to own outcomes because it diffuses that responsibility across teams or across departments.

Tim Hepworth:

And certainly from what you've said there, I think I've probably worked in a number of functionally stupid teams without really realizing that we were functionally stupid.

Dr Amanda Potter:

It's one of those terms I bring up quite a lot with clients, and so many clients I talk to say, oh my gosh, I have worked in a team that was functionally stupid. It may not be the current organization they're in, but they all pretty much can relate back to a time where they have been working with people who are quite narrow in their thinking or status quo focused or they follow process, rules, procedures without question. I think many of us have been in that environment. But that approach definitely undermines accountability.

Tim Hepworth:

Right. Have we come to the end of your list of things that undermine things?

Dr Amanda Potter:

I've got two more. One is depletion or burnout. I've mentioned on the positive side that we can create an environment of accountability through taking care of people's mental health, mental fitness, and their resilience, but we can undermine it if we work people too hard and we push them too hard, because my belief is that if we're too persistent, then we are not being agile and we're not learning enough and we are at risk of burnout. So a quick summary is that if we push people too hard, that depletion or burnout will undermine accountability. The last one is quite quitting. Now, this has been in the press quite a lot. And quiet quitting is when employees make the decision that they are only going to do what they are paid to do. It's the opposite of accountability. It's taking responsibility for the job, but then refusing to go beyond what you're paid to do because it's about that sense of equity and fairness.

Tim Hepworth:

Is it sort of I recognize the description being of a certain age? I would call that working to rule.

Dr Amanda Potter:

It really is. And it was a phrase that was made popular through TikTok. And it was encouraging that individuals do what they're paid to do, that they don't outwardly quit their job, but they don't perform their job beyond what is expected. And they don't go beyond the requirements. Some people might say it's coasting, but I actually don't think it's coasting because it's taking responsibility to do the job, but it's not taking accountability for outcomes and results and going that extra mile.

Tim Hepworth:

Not something that I've come across on TikTok, but quiet quitting, I have heard about it most definitely. But why is it on the rise?

Dr Amanda Potter:

I think the reason is fairness. And I was told by a good friend very recently that her partner, now he's a mechanic, he's been working for his organization for a year, and every day he does between three or four hours unpaid overtime because he's incredibly passionate about cars and he just wants to make sure he delivers. He works on high performance cars. He then took two days sick within his first year of working for that organization, and his line manager said that he would dock those two days paid because he was still within his first year of working for the organization and they didn't pay sick pay. He was so frustrated because every day he's been doing three or four hours extra time.

Tim Hepworth:

Who wouldn't be frustrated?

Dr Amanda Potter:

And so he's now decided that he won't do any more overtime unpaid. So he has quietly quitting. He's doing the job, he's committed, he's hard working while he's there, but he's refused now to do unpaid overtime as a result. So that's an example. So there was a trigger for him to say, no more, I won't be treated like this. It's give and take.

Tim Hepworth:

So the driver for him then was definitely fairness, wasn't it? It's just unfair.

Dr Amanda Potter:

Totally, Tim. So fairness is massive for people to feel like they're part of something. And if people feel like they're not being treated fairly, then they may start demonstrating behaviours that will undermine accountability, for example, quiet quitting.

Tim Hepworth:

There's probably a lot more broad implications of this too.

Dr Amanda Potter:

In what way?

Tim Hepworth:

Well, I guess if people are valuing things in their life outside of work more, family time, sports, hobbies, and things like that, that's probably more enjoyable than going to work. And therefore the trend's going to become just more and more prevalent.

Dr Amanda Potter:

But that's in a way a good thing. Quiet quitting isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's just saying, I'm going to do what I'm being paid to do, and I'd like you to treat me fairly, respectfully, and for us to have a quid pro quo relationship between us. And actually, we know that actually having that balance is good for mental health, it's good for mental fitness, it's great for resilience. And it means that when people are present and at work, they're going to be able to make better decisions. They're not going to procrastinate because they're going to be resilient. So whilst quiet quitting seems like on the surface a bad thing because it actually is being driven by people saying, I don't feel like I'm being treated fairly. We don't want organisations to even get to that point. We want people to be treated in a way which is equitable and for them to be treated in a way that's fair and for them to have a good healthy work-life balance.

Tim Hepworth:

Yeah. I mean, I think it goes back to that idea you said before about trust. It's the employer needs to be able to trust the employee to do their job, but equally, the employee needs to trust their employer to treat them fairly.

Dr Amanda Potter:

Absolutely. Otherwise, we start to see signs of passive aggression, which is when employees start to resent the demands of their managers and they start to resist and they falter in terms of cooperation. They might be cynical or sullen or even be hostile in their behavior. They start to feel under-appreciated or cheated. And so if we start seeing passive-aggressive behaviours, which is when people say yes and then put the piece of work to the bottom of the pile and have absolutely no intention of doing it, that's because they don't feel like they belong, they don't feel like they're being trusted, and they don't feel like their contribution is valued or is important in the organization.

Tim Hepworth:

I can only speak from personal, not experience here, but opinion. I think if I was essentially quiet quitting, I wouldn't be enjoying the time when I was there. Because I'd be thinking, right, I am definitely only doing what I'm prepared to do. I'd suddenly, I've never been a clock watcher, but you'd turn yourself into a clock watcher. So I would find it a very poisonous and toxic thing to do to myself. Never mind anything. I wouldn't be happy staying in an a situation where I was working as quiet quitting.

Dr Amanda Potter:

Me neither. I'm constantly working beyond my hours because I'm passionate and I believe in what we do and because I love it. So I work in the evenings because I want to do it. If I had said to myself, right, I'm not going to do that, gosh, no, I'd feel completely demotivated. I'd almost be demotivating myself. So now I'm completely in agreement.

Tim Hepworth:

Yeah, I think what I'm saying, Amanda, is when I quit, it'll be noisily.

Dr Amanda Potter:

Will it? Okay, noted. I better treat you fairly then, Tim, so that you don't quit. So, in summary, in terms of what might undermine accountability and what we need to deal with as leaders, we need to focus on the environment, stop the top-down controlling or the micromanagement or the too much focus on metrics. We need to be more decisive and overcome this consensus-driven culture and be more bold, stop the procrastination. We need to be aware of our barriers to objectivity and those biases that we've been talking about so that we don't create a functionally stupid environment where we just go with along with the status quo. We need to take care of ourselves so that we don't get depleted, we don't burn out, and we don't quite quit.

Tim Hepworth:

Could you just briefly go over again and summarize for people what the positive aspects of accountability are? Let's finish on a high note.

Dr Amanda Potter:

So we can create a culture of accountability by starting at the top, by role modeling ownership, by making decisions, by admitting mistakes and creating an environment of psychological safety, by creating clarity and making sure everybody understands the impact that they are making and the difference that their role makes in the organization, the contribution that they are having, by looking after our health, by creating healthy habits and to make sure that we're as mentally fit as possible so that we're resilient and therefore are more likely to take ownership and accountability. So we release that dopamine, we break it down into small tasks so we keep getting those dopamine hits. And finally, we create an environment of trust. We actively show that we trust our colleagues and that we create an environment where people feel that they belong to something and they're part of something that's important.

Tim Hepworth:

Brilliant. I'd like to thank Attila Simony, who did a lot of the preparation for this podcast and made us be very knowledgeable about this particular subject. If you like our podcast, please click the follow button on whatever platform you happen to be listening to us on so that you never miss an episode. And if you'd like to get in contact with Amanda, then her details are on her LinkedIn page. Just search for Dr. Amanda Potter. And hey, let's get another plug-in. Please like the Zircon page on LinkedIn to hear about our product, podcast research, and accreditation news. I'd like to thank you once again for listening and look forward to the next podcast and hope you can join us. Thanks again, Amanda.

Dr Amanda Potter:

Thank you, Tim, and thank you everyone for listening. Hope you have a lovely day.

Contributor

Dr Amanda Potter

Host
Contributor

Tim Hepworth

Host
Contributor

Caitlin Cooper

Co-host