Is it just me or is everyone talking about accountability?

“I need my team to be more accountable?” “We’re being asked to focus on accountability” –  I’m hearing the A word everywhere at the moment. But what do they really mean? I need people to be doing things that they currently aren’t doing? I need people to be following through?

Old school forms of accountability all too often seem to err toward the stick more than carrot. But does with approach work?

My preference, within Learning Transfer, is to helping the individual hold themselves accountable to things that they want/ need to do. The want or the need is often a gap in performance or outcome but to hold them accountable you need to not only then to be able to identify the gap but to take ownership of the gap. Without a gap, or without ownership the accountability often falls flat.

Thoughts anyone?