Owning the Outcome

Gary Burnison is CEO of Korn Ferry and the author of Love, Hope & Leadership: A Special Edition.

As the former CEO left the building, he said to his successor, “If you ever get into trouble, check your top desk drawer.”

Six months later, the company’s sales stalled. Remembering the advice he had received, the new CEO opened his desk drawer and discovered three envelopes.

Written on the outside of one were the words, “In the event of trouble, open this envelope first.” Inside was a letter that said, “Blame your predecessor,” which the CEO tactfully did in a conference call with financial analysts. This strategy worked very well… until it did not.

After another six months, things got worse. So, the CEO opened the second envelope, which contained one word: “Restructure.” Immediately, the CEO announced a major reorganization, which worked for a while. But after a year, sales plummeted.

That’s when the CEO opened the last envelope. Inside, the message said, “Prepare three envelopes.”

Moral of the story—none of us can see the future. Failure happens. However, it’s not what we do at the moment of failure that counts. It’s what we do afterwards. At the end of the day, it’s on us—we’re accountable.

When most people think about accountability, though, they look through the lens of how accountable others are to them. The truth is we first need to look in the mirror and see how accountable we are to ourselves—for who we are and how we act.

And if we want to know how we’re doing, we only need to count the number of times we say, “I’m sorry,” in all its forms including, “That’s on me,” “That was the wrong call," and “You were right.”

Deceptively simple, but hard to do. We are all works in progress.

This is the heart of accountability—grounded in two key principles: honesty and humility. Always and everywhere, they define who we are and guide who we become.

Accountability is substantially different from responsibility. Responsibility is all in the present. Accountability is after the fact, which means owning the outcome—win or lose.

A lack of accountability can make people seem indecisive, especially when the stakes are high. I’ve witnessed this so many times when organizations need to make rapid-fire decisions. I can remember the words of one executive facing a particular challenge who confided, “They’re all bad decisions. I’m just trying to pick the least worst decision.”

The problem, I’ve observed, is not that people are afraid of making decisions—rather, they’re acutely aware of the consequences of a negative outcome from those decisions.

In the quest to improve performance at all levels, accountability is a surprising secret strategy. On the organizational level, our firm’s research reveals five key factors for achieving superior performance. Three are intuitive: purpose, leadership, and strategy. The other two probably don’t come to mind automatically: accountability and capability—but together, they contribute about 50 percent of organizational performance.

The same holds true for individuals—accountability is the all-important foundation. This is “mirror, mirror” time, and we all need to face and embrace the unvarnished truth as we continue to navigate unprecedented levels of change.

There is no fourth envelope! The accountability we wish to see in others starts with each of us. And only through honesty and humility can we say, “Whatever the outcome, I’ll own it.”

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