Accountability Without Visibility Is Just Expectation

Accountability is one of the most common conversations we have in business, especially in the car wash industry. We want managers who hold their teams accountable. We want employees who take ownership of their responsibilities. When goals aren't being hit or standards start slipping, it's easy to look at the team and say we need more accountability.

But over the years, I've started to look at accountability a little differently. A lot of the time, I don't think the real problem is accountability. I think it's visibility.

It's difficult to hold someone accountable for something they can't clearly see. We can communicate expectations, set goals and tell people what we want accomplished, but that doesn't necessarily give someone what they need to manage the outcome. If they don't know where they currently stand, what is expected of them, or whether they're moving in the right direction, we're really just hoping they get there.

Membership growth is a great example of this. An owner can tell a manager that the site needs to grow memberships this month. The manager understands the expectation, but there is a big difference between understanding the expectation and having the visibility to actually manage it.

Does that manager know the membership goal for the month? Do they know where the site currently stands against that goal? Do they know what they need to average each day to get there? Are they looking at capture rate, cancellations and net gain? Are they talking about those numbers with their team throughout the month?

If not, we've essentially given someone a destination without giving them a way to know whether they're headed in the right direction.

What often happens next is predictable. The month ends, the goal isn't hit and then the accountability conversation starts. We look at the final numbers and ask why we didn't get there. There is certainly value in understanding what happened, but at that point we can't change the result.

I would much rather have a manager recognize on the 10th or 15th of the month that they're behind pace. There is still time to do something about it. They can work with their team, look at what isn't working, make adjustments and then see whether those adjustments are improving the result.

That is where visibility starts creating real accountability.

The same concept applies far beyond membership growth. Labor is another good example. We can tell managers that they're responsible for controlling labor, but do they have an easy way to see where labor stands throughout the day? Can they recognize early enough that they're trending in the wrong direction and make an adjustment?

Cleaning is no different. Every operator wants a clean site, but simply telling employees to keep the site clean leaves a lot open to interpretation. What exactly needs to be cleaned? How often? Who is responsible for each area? How does the manager know it was completed correctly?

Maintenance works the same way. Telling a manager to stay on top of preventative maintenance is an expectation. Having a system that shows what needs to be completed, when it's due, who owns it and whether it was completed creates visibility around that expectation.

None of this is complicated, but I've seen firsthand how much of a difference it can make.

One of the mistakes we can make as owners and leaders is giving someone responsibility without giving them enough visibility into what they're responsible for. Then we become frustrated when they aren't taking ownership of the result.

If I'm responsible for running a car wash, I should have a pretty good idea of whether my site is winning or losing without waiting for my boss to tell me.

That doesn't mean managers need dozens of reports or that every possible number needs to be tracked. I actually think too much information can create its own problems. When everything becomes a priority, eventually nothing is a priority.

The better approach is identifying the handful of numbers and standards that actually drive the operation and making those visible consistently. What those numbers are may vary from one organization to another, but the idea is the same. The people responsible for the outcome should be able to see the information they need to manage it.

I also think this is where accountability sometimes gets confused with micromanagement.

They aren't the same thing.

If an owner has to constantly remind a manager what needs to be done, check behind everything they do and personally identify every problem, the business hasn't really created accountability. It's created dependence on the owner.

Real accountability should eventually create the opposite.

When managers know what is expected of them, understand what success looks like and have visibility into their performance, they have the ability to make decisions before someone else has to step in. They can recognize when something is moving in the wrong direction. They can coach their team. They can make adjustments. Most importantly, they can actually lead.

This becomes increasingly important as a car wash organization grows.

With one location, an owner can see almost everything. You can walk the property, talk to employees, watch what's happening at the pay stations, look at the tunnel and get a pretty good feel for how the business is operating.

As locations are added, that changes quickly.

At three locations, five locations or ten locations, it's impossible for the owner to personally see everything happening across the organization. If the business still depends on the owner identifying every problem, asking every question and driving every result, growth will eventually expose that weakness.

That's where systems and visibility become incredibly important.

The goal isn't to create more spreadsheets, more reports or more meetings. The goal is to create an organization where the right people have the right information early enough to actually do something with it.

When that happens, the conversations inside the business change. Instead of asking at the end of the month why a goal wasn't hit, managers can recognize during the month that they're falling behind and make an adjustment. Instead of an owner constantly pointing out problems, managers begin identifying those problems themselves. Instead of repeatedly reminding people what is expected, you start giving them the ability to take ownership of the outcome.

That's when accountability becomes part of how the business operates rather than something the owner has to constantly enforce.

So when an organization feels like it has an accountability problem, I think it's worth looking at visibility before assuming it's a people problem.

Can the person you're trying to hold accountable clearly see what they're responsible for? Do they understand what success looks like? Can they easily see where they currently stand? And, most importantly, are they getting that information early enough to do something about it?

If the answer is no, that's probably where I would start.

Because setting expectations is easy. Building a business where people have the information, structure and ownership to consistently deliver on those expectations is much harder.

And that's the difference.

Accountability without visibility is just expectation.