What is an accountability culture for your organisation?Accountability for me means three things: First: Keep the main thing the main thing. When you are involved in too many things, you are not making a difference in any. In numbers, often three is a good number of things to focus on. Second: We are not in the "surprise business". Watch progress on the main things, the three-to-five key objectives for the company, every day. If one of the main objectives goes off target, the leader in charge needs to tell you so you can tackle the challenge together. Expect to be in the "problem solving business" and do not accept to be in the "surprise business". Third: Be tough on issues, not on people. I strive hard to hold my team mates to deliver and I have high expectations. This also means never being personal. "Help me do better" is great, but "you are stupid" is poor, and unacceptable.

Why is it important to create an accountability culture? Many teams and organisations find and recruit well-intending and good people, which is necessary but not efficient. With good leadership, you create a good game plan, but the toughest thing is for you to have good people to execute a winning game plan. You can relax, thinking you have good people and a winning game plan ... and listen to the 70s Meat Loaf song Two out of Three Ain't Bad. It is the wrong song for you. We all have to hold our leaders accountable for more than effort. We have to strive for difference-making outcomes. Don't confuse efforts for results.

What do you do as the CEO to create an accountability culture in your organisation? Four things: First, we have Management Business Objectives (MBOs), or key goals, for myself and the senior officers. We cascade these goals down to every team mate. If time and energy is spent on something that's not an MBO, there'd better be a darn good reason for it. If not, re-direct your time and energy. In addition, every team mate only has two-to-six business objectives to keep them focused. Second, we have regular weekly progress reviews during which each leader of an initiative describes what s/he is doing to make it happen. And, if it does not happen, what alternative action is being taken. Third, we have public competitions. Every month, we have a Most Valuable Player - a person from any position in our company who lived our values most consistently; each MVP is celebrated and made to feel special, without any cash incentive. And, I host a lunch or dinner with each winner one-one. Fourth and most importantly, we all go out and celebrate the MVP of the Month.

What is your favourite book pick on this topic? The answer to this one is a bit tongue-in-cheek: Simple Solutions by Tom Schmitt and Arnold Perl.