Accountability sinks

> 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.

> 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.