Accountability sinks

This article seems to redefine the word "accountability". In the first sentence:

> In The Unaccountability Machine, Dan Davies argues that organizations form “accountability sinks,” structures that absorb or obscure the consequences of a decision such that no one can be held directly accountable for it.

Why not just call it "no-consequence sinks"?

It's somewhat of an oxymoron to say "accountability" isn't working because there's no consequence. Without any consequence there is no accountability. So why call it accountability in the first place?

This article is describing something along the lines of "shared accountability" which, in project management, is a well known phenomenon: if multiple people are accountable for something, then no one is accountable.

If someone is accountable for something that they can't do fully themselves, they are still accountable for setting up systems (maybe even people to help) to scale their ability to remain accountable for the thing.

I think it’s that the accountability falls into the sink and doesn’t reach the decision maker. I still find accountability poorly defined, even after the effort. Clicking through to the definition helps.

It’s all kinda mushy. Being accountable is hearing and knowing a story. I don’t see why that has to correlate with decision power.

The point of the article could be made much more clearly by talking about systems that leave decision makers not aware of the consequences of their decisions. All the anecdotes in the article fit that pattern.

I think people don’t use the language of decision-consequences because it doesn’t capture an emotional aspect they’d rather not say out loud. They want the decision maker to feel their pain, they want the decision maker to hurt.

Decision makers can be aware of how many unready rooms are caused by less cleaning staff, how many flights they’re cancelling. I’d actually bet they are. But that’s not enough, the harmed person wants to tell their story.

Author is describing a specific phenomena different from shared accountability.

I disagree with the authors definition of accountability:

> The fundamental law of accountability: the extent to which you are able to change a decision is precisely the extent to which you can be accountable for it, and vice versa.

No.

You can absolutely be accountable for something that you can’t change a decision about. Simple example: You’re a branding agency and you decide to rename X to Y. (No pun intended). The rebrand to Y fails. You’re accountable for the failure, but likely don’t have the ability to change anything by the time you know the results of your decision.

Edit: ok, fair I agree. Bad example. A simpler example would be the person in the article continuing to point the the boss above them until there’s no one left. The chain would break somewhere along the way, but the broken chain is communication rather than one of accountability.

The information may not reach the person able to make a change. But that doesn’t make them not accountable. If that person is unable to make a change because they’re in vacation for a month without anyone filling in, that person is accountable for both the results AND future results that are caused by not having someone monitor/reroute their acckuntability.

In that example, accountability is not with the branding firm at any point. Someone at the client that hired the branding firm is accountable for approving the rebrand and someone at the client is accountable for leaving it in place.

The branding firm certainly does not seem to have performed well, from the scenario you described. But accountability is not the same as performance or even culpability.

It's much like the distinction between responsibility and blame. At least in English, it seems like a lot of different meanings often get blurred together.

At its root, responsibility is about who responds, rather than who causes.

Sounds like you perfectly understood the article. I don't get what you're complaining about. You agree but don't like the language?

Replace the word "change" to "make" and it may be more intuitive

It's not clear from the article (which I largely agree with), but that "ability to change the decision" can just as easily refer to change the decision before it is made, instead of any ability to change it afterwards.

Amazon's concept of "two way and one way doors" is useful here. A two way door decision lets you go back if the decision turns out to be bad and can be made with significantly less scrutiny that a one way door decision which you cannot back out of after you've acted on it.

Basically, yea. Maybe being pedantic.

In certain fields, there is a serious and distinct difference between Accountability, Responsibility, Consulting, and Informing.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_assignment_ma...

There’s a whole philosophy behind it. My spidey senses tingle when those words get misconstrued.

In the article, there are human agents involved at all times; sometimes people create accountability sinks even without humans.

You're a neolithic farmer, and plant your barley, but that year there's a drought; you suffer the consequences, but who (or what) do you hold accountable?

we can argue semantics all day but when I see 'accountability' to me it means 'this person's ass is on the line'

shared accountability is spreading that risk around to a group (but I don't think it necessarily eliminates that accountability – you can fire an entire department if you need to)

author's point, which I think is interesting, is that there's bermuda triangles where accountability cannot occur and that these can manifest naturally, outside of any traditional RACI

I get this, but I think we can recognize the author might not be from the same background. Which I think you can talk about the point while noting what language is used in your community.

After all, is it the words or the ideas behind the words that matter more? We should always be trying to improve our language, but I'm worried if we prioritize words over meanings. I feel it's an important thing considering how language is constantly evolving.