How can agency owners hold themselves accountable?

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Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: And Gini, I, I need some accountability.

Gini Dietrich: Okay. I’d be happy to hold you accountable. That’ll actually be fun for me.

Chip Griffin: It is very difficult as a business owner to, to be truly accountable, and just before we started, I was relaying how I failed to get out a newsletter last week because I was, I was tied up catching up after an emergency root canal, and so I did not get a newsletter out, and there was nobody there yelling at me to tell me that I needed…

Well, actually I take that back. Jen-

Gini Dietrich: I was gonna say, I’m sure Jen, I think Jen holds you accountable …

Chip Griffin: Jen asked me like 400 times, “Are we actually gonna get a newsletter out today? Are you gonna send me something? Will we have something?”

Gini Dietrich: I’m sure that that’s true.

Chip Griffin: But, it just, it really underscores that, that as the owner, ultimately you make the decisions, and it is very difficult to have proper accountability for what you do or what you don’t do.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. It’s super hard. You know, it’s funny because we talk internally all the time about how I’m the bottleneck. And people are like, “I really need you to review this,” but there’s also six direct reports, and I’m, and six people, different people saying, “I really need you to review this.” Things get bottlenecked.

I just thought, “Ugh, I’ve got my own priorities as well.” So it’s a real challenge, and even when you have, to your point, even when you have people saying, “I need this, I need this, I need this,” you ultimately make the decision on what’s the priority and whether or not it gets done.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And it’s, you know, I, think a lot of times we’ll have employees and we’ll ask, them to hold us accountable, and sometimes that works, but most of the time it doesn’t.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Right.

Chip Griffin: The, reality is that I have told many employees over the years, “You need to hold me accountable for this or that.” 95% of them won’t because they know you sign the paycheck.

Gini Dietrich: Right. Yes.

Chip Griffin: I have been blessed to occasionally have some in that 5% who were persistent and, they would, they would come camp out in my office and say, “You told me you would get me this answer by this time. I need it.” But that’s a very, very small percentage of the people that, that I have worked with at least, and I suspect that most owners have worked with.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I think there’s, I think it’s twofold. I think there is an opportunity for your team to manage up, and by doing that, I think exactly you’re, what you’re saying, like camp out in your office. Or I have one person on my leadership team who is phenomenal at coming to her one-to-one with everything she needs me to make a decision on.

And if it’s a document that she needs me to review, she provides me the highlights, and she says, “These are the two areas I need you to, review, and I need it as soon as we hang up.” And then she gives me 15 or 20 minutes back at the end of the meeting so that I can review those things. And then if I don’t, like I’m the asshole, sorry, the jerk that didn’t do it because she gave me the time back and I did something else.

So like she does a phenomenal job of managing up, and that’s how she does it. But I think you’re right that it has, it comes with, I think it comes with experience, I think it comes with other leadership roles that they’ve played, like all of the- and some confidence, you know, to be able to say to the owner or the person who signs the check, “Hey, you gotta focus on this.”

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, I think even though you know it, it may not be as effective as you would like it to be to have your employees holding you accountable, you still need to create a culture in which- Yes … it’s possible to do that- Yes … where, they are encouraged to do that, because that will at least provide some degree of accountability for your actions and follow through.

Certainly more so than if you scare people off, if you make people, if you kinda flick people away and say, “No, no”- Yep … “stop bothering me about this.” Yep. If you do that, it’s gonna be really difficult to get any kind of sense of accountability with your team and, it really does help you to have that.

We complain all the time about, you know, clients who are on our back about this or that, but it does help us to make sure that things get done. And, so as long as it’s not overbearing, there is a benefit to that. Internally, we often have challenges with that, particularly for things related to our own business as opposed to for clients or for prospects.

But we need to try to, as best as possible, create that culture where everybody is willing to step up and say, “Hey, this needs to be done. You are the blocker.” And, if you don’t, if they don’t call you out on it, things are probably gonna slip through the cracks.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, for sure. And, I find that I reprioritize based on what I think is the most pressing, right?

And for me, what might be pressing may not be the same as it might be for somebody else on the team. So I need people to say, “Listen, I know that you’ve got this and this and this, but I, this is, this will, is what will happen if I don’t get this from you by this date.” And then I can go, “Okay, let me look at everything and kind of rejigger based on, those kinds of things.”

So I, like from an owner’s perspective, I need people to say, “I need this from you. You’re the bottleneck. Here’s why, and here’s what it, here are the consequences.” So then I can decide, okay, well, it’s not that big of a deal, or shoot, we don’t want that. Let’s get this done.

Chip Griffin: Well, and, part of the accountability function for you as the, boss/owner is to identify, you know, where you are, where you need to be the bottleneck and where you don’t.

Right. Right? If, you- Right. Part of this comes down to- Yes … reducing the amount of things that you need to be held-

Gini Dietrich: Yep …

Chip Griffin: accountable for. And- Yep … you know, we’ve talked in the past about the importance of delegation and, trusting your team and giving them more responsibility, but that is very closely related to the accountability question.

So if you are either micromanaging or you are overpromising and saying, “Yeah, I can get to that tomorrow,” when you know you can’t get to it tomorrow, you need to, to-

Gini Dietrich: You think you can because you think you have 36 hours in the day instead of 24.

Chip Griffin: Fair. Fair. But you need to get better at, estimating how long it’s really gonna take to do things so that you’re in a position where the commitments that you are making, particularly to your team or to others, you can uphold.

And so there is something realistic to hold you accountable for. Because if you say, “Look, well, I, you know, I can move this skyscraper tomorrow,” and you know you can’t, it’s hard to truly hold you accountable for it, right? Because- Sure … it was never gonna happen anyway.

Gini Dietrich: Right.

Chip Griffin: And so you need to be in a position where the things that you promise are, truly legitimately things that you can be held accountable for afterwards.

Gini Dietrich: Tell you what we started doing this year, and it has worked extraordinarily well for me. And I know that not everybody wants to function this way, but this is how– this is one way that you could do it. We do objectives and key results, so OKRs. We– That’s the process that we follow internally. And one of the things we said at the beginning of this year is, “If we wanna reach our goals, one of our OKRs has to be less founder dependence.”

And so as part of that, everything that’s in my brain has to come out. So we have to understand how Gini does work, how Gini delivers, like, how she has new business meetings, and the questions she asks, and how she does discovery calls. From that all the way through how she delivers, you know, keynotes to how she delivers content, to how she even produces content.

And when she produces that content, what does the team need to do to be able to, like, all of the things, right? And so that has been front and center for the whole year and well, half of the year right now, but it will be for the rest of the year as well, is how are we depending less and less and less on Gini, the founder?

And that’s through process, it’s through standard operating procedures, it’s through things that are written down. I do video tutorials, all sorts of things, so that by the end of the year, I’m less the bottleneck and more focused on the things that I need to be focused on as the leader of the organization.

And because it’s an OKR, it’s in every single leadership team meeting. It’s up there in bright red because we haven’t met it yet, and we can see exactly where we’re scoring against it. And as somebody who likes to have green instead of red, I’m like, “Okay, let’s get this done.” So it works extraordinarily well for me.

But, you know, there are other ways I think that you can think about how to let people hold you accountable in that same kind of way that work for you or your brain.

Chip Griffin: Well, I, think you’ve really highlighted the key thing here, which is that, that you need to come up with a system that works for you. You are- Yes

you are ultimately- Yes … the owner. You are the, most difficult person to hold accountable within your organization in all likelihood, and so you need to develop systems and processes and approaches that get you to that accountability. And, what works for me, will not work for Gini, will not work for you.

You know, we all have different styles, different motivators. You know, for you it’s the, red versus green that everybody can see, and, you know, so that sort of, that follows sort of what I would call the name-and-shame approach, to accountability.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. It works.

Chip Griffin: And that can work. You know, there are people who have the, you know, the simple discipline that if they’ve got a list, they’re just committed to getting through that list.

Yep, yep. And there are some people who that, just seeing that unchecked item on the list is enough. And, certainly at a minimum it’s helpful for you to be tracking all the things that you are accountable for that you need to do so that, you know, you and perhaps your team can see, you know, what’s, outstanding.

And, if you don’t have that, it’s really hard to be accountable, right? So you need to, have, in my view, no matter what your style is, some sort of a tracker so that you know what it is. Whether that’s a note card like I use for my daily stuff that’s the most important that needs to be done. I have a task manager for longer term stuff.

You know, you might have a project management system. Maybe you’ve got a whiteboard. I don’t really care. Everybody kind of needs their system to make sure that they’re at least doing some basic level of tracking of the things that they need to be accountable for, otherwise your odds of success are, very, very low.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I totally agree with that. And I would say on the flip side, you know, getting the work complete, honestly and truly, and I know we’ve talked about AI to death, but I don’t know how I did my job without AI. Like, I look back on the last three or four years and I’m like, I don’t know how I did my job without it. Because it has stopped that procrastination that I have where I’ll get it done, but it will be the very last minute before the deadline, literally.

And it, it has stopped that really bad habit of mine, because what I’ll do at the end of the day is I’ll say, “Okay, these are the three things I need to accomplish tomorrow,” and I will open those projects in Claude Cowork and I’ll say to it, “Here’s the project I need, here’s one project I need to complete tomorrow.

Please break it down into bite-sized chunks.” And I do that with the three projects, with the three things I need to accomplish the next day, and I let it work overnight and do that for me. And then I get up the next morning, and it’s, there’s a list of like, “You have to do this first, then this, then this, then this.”

And it’s significantly easier than me sitting here going, “Okay, if I start this, it’s gonna take me four hours, and I don’t have a four-hour block.” So it, it breaks it down into 15 or 30-minute chunks for me so that I can get through it. And I do that every single day before I shut my computer down.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, and, again, that, that works for you.

For me, you know, AI has, has certainly helped in some areas. It’s made it worse in other areas because, you know, it allows me to, play with a lot of different ideas that, that I might-

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, there’s that too. Sure

Chip Griffin: … so, I’ve added more to my plate while I’m also becoming more efficient and effective at some of the things that were already there.

So it, you know, for me, it probably comes out in the wash. Certainly there’s a lot of things that I, don’t procrastinate on in, in the same way that I used to. I think about a presentation I gave earlier today that I actually put notes together on a week ago because I was using AI, and I just-

Gini Dietrich: Amazing

Chip Griffin: I took a few minutes to just kind of stream of consciousness- Yeah … share some thoughts with Claude, and then it gave me an outline, so I actually had something ready to cook a week ago on that, that, you know, normally I would’ve been sitting down 15 minutes before the presentation-

Gini Dietrich: Right. Yes.

Chip Griffin: … and, starting to make some notes about, you know, what I might talk about. So it was, it was A, not last minute, and B, you know, Claude helped me find some things that I might have overlooked. It helped me to organize them into a more logical fashion. And so, you know, in 20 minutes of prep a week ago, I got farther than I would have in the same 20 minutes before the presentation today, which would have been my old style.

At the same time, I’ve got a whole bunch of different projects that I’m playing with Claude with that I probably would never even have attempted, so net plus there-

Gini Dietrich: Same. Yeah. Fair. Yes. Same

 

Chip Griffin: but also it gets in the way of- … of some of the, basic daily stuff. So, you know, it’s a, it’s, a mixed bag.

But, I think the important thing here is just trying to figure out what works for you, what works for your team, having conversations with them, because it’s, most of us are not very good at being, you know, fully self-accountable. We need some sort of forcing mechanism, and part of that is helping your team to understand how, can they best hold you accountable?

Is it that red versus green on the screen? Is it by camping out with you in your office? Is it by using those one-to-ones to, to be the mechanism that gets thing- things done? What is it that will help you get your team in particular what they need? But not all of it can be done internally, right? So sometimes it’s helpful to have some sort of external accountability force.

Gini Dietrich: Yep. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there are everything from, I, you know, in the Spin Sucks community, there’s a group of people that they’re their, each other’s accountability partners. I don’t know how well that works, but they meet, you know, on every, I think they meet every two weeks, and they hold each other accountable.

You can certainly have a coach, like what you do. You can join a membership organization like a YPO or a Vistage or something like that. There are lots of opportunities, I think, for you to have accountability partners outside of work as well, outside of your office to help you with those things too.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I think having some sort of a, an external partner or partners, you know, whether that’s peers, whether that’s paid advisors, whatever, it certainly can help because, you know, I, think back to, you know, we used to have folks who, cleaned our house, and we would always clean up before they got here because you didn’t want them to see how messy you really were in real life.

And, you know, and, this was, you know, really useful to us when we had little kids and, you know- Yeah … the house was, messy. Yep. But, you know, we would tidy it up quite a bit before the cleaners would come in for their, weekly cleaning. Mm. And so that, that was effectively the accountability for us not to let the whole place just, you know, go to hell- Yeah … in a hand basket.

Gini Dietrich: Sure.

Chip Griffin: And I think the same thing can happen whether it is, you know, a peer or, you know, your company attorney or accountant or a coach or whomever. There’s… You just don’t want to, let people see things deteriorating, and so there’s, a, value to having those typically in addition to whatever mechanisms you have internally, right?

‘Cause it, this works better for the big picture stuff. If you’re- Yeah … particularly if you’re, you know- Right … sitting with peers- Right … or something like that- Yeah … they’re not gonna help you with the accountability for the day-to-day tasks, but they can help you for the big picture stuff. Like, you know, I’m, I need to think about, you know, shifting my, my focus for the business, or I need to, think about our service offerings or those kinds of things.

Gini Dietrich: I need to fill a pipeline. I need a new business process. All of those things, yeah.

Chip Griffin: Right. Because some of these things may be things you don’t even wanna discuss with your team, right? Yeah. You know, particularly if it’s, you know, reshaping the business or something like that. That may be scary for a lot of your team to, to contemplate. Sure. They may not have the right skillsets to help you navigate that, and so having other people that can hold you accountable so that, you know, when you’re doing your every other week call or monthly call or whatever you might do with a peer, you, know, you have something to update them on, and it’s not just like, “Yep, pretty much the same as last month.I don’t really have anything new to report here.”

Gini Dietrich: There we go. Nothing else. Yeah, right.

Chip Griffin: You know, so, there, there is real benefit to having those, you know, external mechanisms in, some fashion to do that same naming and shaming that we talked about before, to, hold you accountable.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, for sure.

Chip Griffin: Now, there’s, there are always the people that I talk to who are like, “Okay, well, we need an advisory board or maybe a proper board or those kinds of things, a more formal accountability structure.” I’ll be honest, I think in general, those do not work for-

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I agree with that …

Chip Griffin: for most, small agencies.

Yeah. Frankly, it doesn’t work for most big agencies either.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I totally agree with that.

Chip Griffin: I, I’m candidly skeptical of boards even for huge organizations in many cases because having participated in and around many of them over the years, the vast majority are not as independent as they are made to be. And, so therefore, they don’t necessarily serve the function that you would expect them to. And we see this all the time when there are, you know, big company scandals around CEOs and boards not providing proper oversight. So I, think even, in those cases where directors are paid and they have, you know, actual legal responsibilities, they often fall down on their accountability roles.

I think really hard for most small agencies- Yeah … uh, to do that. I, I totally agree with that. Certainly, advisory boards I think are- Yeah. I mean, there’s a little bit of the name and shame in that, right? You know, if you have to, update them on certain things. But, even then, I, think that works better in one-on-one type relationships as opposed to an advisory board.

And a proper board just adds complexity to your business that-

Gini Dietrich: That you don’t need …

Chip Griffin: that probably is not necessary and-

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely not …

Chip Griffin: And if you’re gonna create a proper board, by all means, talk to a lawyer and an accountant before you do it because there are other issues that pop up as soon as you start adding those structures in.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I totally agree with that 100%.

Chip Griffin: But I think the, you know, really the, bottom line here is that, you know, for your business to succeed, you do need to be held accountable in some fashion for your actions. It’s really hard to do it yourself, so you need to try to find whatever tools will work best to get you as close to that as possible. Understanding that at the end of the day, it is still your business.

If you want to let something drop, if you want to ignore something-

Gini Dietrich: You can …

Chip Griffin: you can.

Yep.

Right? So, there does have to be- Yeah, absolutely … some degree of, sense of- Yep … sense of, of self-accountability, but you need tools to help you get there better because left only to your own devices, I, know for me at least, I, would let a lot of things slide.

Not just the weekly newsletter.

Gini Dietrich: Sure, yep. Well, the weekly newsletter will get out. It’ll just be late.

Chip Griffin: It’ll get out. Maybe next week.

Gini Dietrich: Okay.

Chip Griffin: Maybe this week. Who knows? But-

Gini Dietrich: That’s true …

Chip Griffin: we get it out as often as, we can. We’re a small operation, you know? And I am definitely, definitely the roadblock on the weekly newsletter.

Jen always has her part. I love it. She’s al- The weekly roundup is always on time.

Gini Dietrich: Yep.

Chip Griffin: The rest of it, kinda hit or miss.

Gini Dietrich: I understand.

Chip Griffin: So with that, we will wrap up this episode of, the Agency Leadership Podcast. Maybe it’ll be in this week’s newsletter, maybe it’ll be in next week’s newsletter. I don’t know.

It’ll be in a newsletter at some point. And before it goes in the newsletter, it’s on the website, so you can always find it there. Anyway, on that note, we’ll wrap this one up. I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: And it depends.