Accountability of the Team

Many owners of small business feel that they shouldn’t have to “babysit” their employees. After all, the people that have been hired are all professionals. They know what has to be done. They don’t need monitoring, right? Is this a realistic . . .or an effective point of view?

Dave Bryan, president of Blackdog Builders, is about as hands off a manager as you could get. “As people came on and began taking responsibility for their work, I backed off. I’m not a micromanager at all. They knew what they had to do to get the job done.”

And while he believes this to be true in theory, he found that in practice more things fell through the cracks than he had anticipated. “There were critical elements that just didn’t get done – not because anyone was lazy or blowing it off,” he comments, “in fact it was just the opposite most of the time. They were so busy that certain tasks just dropped off the radar screen – they stopped being a priority and that was causing problems throughout the company.”

So to increase accountability across the board without having his managers forced into the uncomfortable role of policing individuals, David and his key managers created the Weekly Job Jamboree.

This whimsical name camouflages the critical importance of this company-wide meeting, during which all jobs in both the sales funnel and production are reviewed.

“Our goal is to make sure that the priority tasks are really being completed – to be really tight on our procedures as that makes a huge difference in our profitability,” says David.

During the meeting, key information for each job is projected onto a screen for all employees to view. Each salesperson and each project manager reports on the jobs for which they are responsible. “While we try not to single out any one person,” comments David, “at the end of the day, if someone isn’t getting the important tasks done, they are singled out.”

This level of tough accountability isn’t familiar to this company. “Because we didn’t want to radically shift from our core culture of individual responsibility, I tried to make it pleasant and fun and began to soften up on what we were going to discuss.,” he says. “But my managers held firm. They said, ‘If we’re going to do it, let’s ask the tough questions and do it right.’ So we do!”

The Blackdog team is finding that their Weekly Job Jamboree, while focusing on the positive and their efforts to do things right, is helping everyone on the team focus on the tasks that insure project success.

Remodelers Advantage Inc., 535 Main Street, Suite 211, Laurel, MD 20707 www.RemodelersAdvantage.com