Those seeking high performance should first look for accountability.

Management has moved on a long way from Weber’s ideal bureaucracy, with its well-defined hierarchy, multiple layers and closely defined accountabilities. There are probably few who would wish to go back to such mechanistic organisations, nor would any survive in this world. Yet values persist and the virtues of shared behaviours, language and standards of accountability1 spring eternal in underpinning organisational performance.

Consistent values – and above all those of accountability – are the glue that bind repeated performance.

In high-performance teams, we see repeatedly that mutual, internal accountability prevails in force. Such teams are characterised by self evaluation, and their sense of internal accountability is far greater than any imposed by a boss or outsider.

They demonstrate clearly that accountability is a behaviour, not an action.

This is deeply cultural. Yet it is the nature of the modern world that the culture of even the healthiest organisations is under persistent challenge.

Rates of technological change create the suggestion that there is always a newer, better, faster way of doing things. Managing teams and people in modern workplaces it has been observed,

“… isn’t like operating a machine or treating the human body one ailment at a time … The proper metaphor … is balancing a mobile ... not attending to each piece in isolation; it’s connecting and balancing all the pieces … the critical task is understanding how the pieces balance off one another, how changing one element changes the rest, how sequencing and pace affect the whole structure.”

So, as the ground shifts repeatedly, requiring regular workplace reconfiguration, we see that there is a risk to every successful culture. In restructure, whatever its cause – acquisition, realignment, divestment lies the possibility of fracture, and of values unattended working themselves adrift.