Accountability: Why the Fear?

I think sometimes there are just concepts that mesh with one's personality: some people are healers, some caretakers, others visionaries.  For me, I think there is no coincidence that I've studied social systems professionally, that I own every kind of fitness and lifestyle tracker the web has to offer me, I'm a huge advocate of the concept of "achievement."  How do all of these fit together?  They're all based in accountability: I want to know how I'm doing, I want to know how others are doing, I want to know what the standards are, I want to achieve those standards at the highest levels.  I am an accountant of life (and, it should be noted absolutely not finances.  That's a different thing altogether).So, when in a social service agency or in collective impact activities we run into walls around accountability, I'm perplexed.  Depending upon how far down the line of punting on accountability we go, I also can become very annoyed (which are never my most favorite professional moments but...life's a journey).

What I see, as a lover of accounting for things, is a total terror when it comes to writing a goal on paper and holding ourselves to it.  People. shut. down.  Given that my own experience with metrics, tracking, accountability is of a cozy blanket lulling me into a well-needed deep sleep, I'm always taken aback by this response.  An accountability framework helps but obviously not everyone.  So this had led me to ask the question:

"What leads people to have such terror when it comes to accountability?"

Story time.

We've got an action team who loves doing events.  They are all in on planning meetings for these events.  You can feel the excitement in the room rise in planning for the food, the activities, the recruitment.  When we attempt the broach the topic of impact of the events--what's the outcome we hope to have?  What's the reach we want?  How will we know if we're successful?--this usually affable, energetic group turns angry, argumentative, and defensive.  Either surprised by this change in tenor or tired of having to deal with it, we quickly return to the details of planning because it's an easier road.  And thus, we find ourselves in a cycle of event planning with no framework for assessment and an active push back against that.

It's the defensiveness that I think is most telling. I think there's a couple things going on here:

1. Fear of Judgement

It seems to me that maybe even more than usual, people in this collective impact setting are afraid of being judged.  They may hesitate or actively push back against quantifying things because they love their idea, they find joy and fulfillment in it and the idea that we're going to put it onto a scale or expect things from it is too much.

2. Fear of Expectations that are too High

This is a salient contextual detail: the city in which our CI works is hyper intellectual, hyper aggressive about achievement, and what can feel beyond judgmental.  Furthermore, our CI agenda has been articulated as changing lives for people.  So now we have the juxtaposition of an idea they love and a way they want to make a difference conjoined with the idea that there's an expectation of changing lives.  What this fear may indicate is that too much importance or expectation has been placed on the outcome of something they see as more of a relational process.  Also, an event is a much more "doable" project than, say, a comprehensive social change strategy.  

3. Fear of Failure

Mostly see the point above.  This is tied in with expectations that can never be met.  No one wants to fail and when it's in the name of our kids, don't we feel like double failures?  I probably would.  If I had kids. Which I don't.

4. Fear of the Truth

This sounds so pretentious.  I don't mean it that way.  But what I'm finding as a sociologist among many, many others who don't think the way I do is that sometimes reality can be a real beotch. It's hard to face the reality, maybe, that our beloved idea is not the answer, it wasn't implemented well, it needs to evolve or change, or it's time to sunset it.  I suspect that for many in this collaborative, who dedicate their time and talent, their events or ideas are their territory to be protected.  The deeper issue here, then, is one of not feeling appreciated.  If you have to stake out your territory and police it, then it means you feel threatened.  And metrics, in reality, will prove the hunch you may have about a change to your idea.  So let's just not do that.

Armchair quarterbacks, I am sure there are so many other things going on and I look forward to hearing all of the possibilities in comments or posts of your own.  But realizing just the few mentioned above, it does give me--as the measurement person--some data on which to move forward.  I don't have answers yet but I do have a slew of questions to ask myself before approaching the next measurement conversation:

• How can I support or build the idea that measurement aids in exploratory ideas and risk-taking?
• How can the data we ask for or collect speak to value of the idea or the relational process rather than just the outcome?
• How can I position data to be non-threatening--both in collection and use?  What's the narrative about why we use data?
• How can I use metrics/eval conversations to promote the idea of flexibility and nimbleness?
• What kinds of data should be employed together to capture stories of appreciation as well as information for course correction?

These feel like just the beginning.  I do think there are answers to all of them but, when taken in a broad stroke, speak to a data culture.  Typically, data culture exists in organizations who have normalized, or made everyday, the use of data so that people understand how the data is used, what their anticipated relationship with it is, and how they may be affected by it.  I've yet to see a community that has truly nailed it when it comes to establishing a community data culture. Seems like a perfect project for collective impact.

I also have another thought and that is: sometimes accountability IS a relational activity.  It's not just data.  Accountability means holding each other to some kind of standard whether it be excellence, fairness, honesty...whatever.  So maybe, before diving into metrics, we need to return to the root of the activity and examine how we collectively agree to keep ourselves accountable to the greater mission.

It's about people, dammit.