Lessons From The Best: Leading Accountability - FedEx
As we prepare for the release of our new eBook Lead Where You Are which will be coming out right after the first of the year, we will be exploring how organizations rated as a Best Place to Work create dynamic, highly engaged workforces delivering sustained results by leveraging many of the concepts we highlight in the book.
Week 1 (Oct. 10) - Leading with Purpose
Week 2 (Oct. 17) - Leading Change
Week 3 (Oct. 24) - Leading Accountability
Week 4 (Oct. 30) - Leading Performance
Leading Accountability - FedEx
FedEx, founded in 1971 as Federal Express and based in Memphis, TN, has been named a Fortune Magazine Best Companies to Work For thirteen times with its most recent award in 2018.
We can learn a lot from this outstanding organization, one that I have personal experience with having worked there for over 10 years. Their Purple Promise of making every FedEx experience outstanding is shared by over 400,000 employees worldwide, each accountable to each other and their customers.
Many organizations talk about accountability, FedEx is an organization that exemplifies accountability. One afternoon, a PM courier headed to Denton, TX from the Irving FedEx facility, an hour drive one-way to complete their afternoon pickup route. When he reached his first drop box for pickup, he realized he left the drop box key back at the Irving station. Depending on the location, each drop box could contain between 40-50 packages. That would amount to a massive number of delivery failures the next day. Faced with a difficult situation, this courier showed a “no matter what” level of accountability. No matter what, he was going to ensure those packages made it to the aircraft that night and their destination the next day. Despite a number of not so great options such as leaving the packages for the next day and chalking it up to human error, having a team member meet him halfway with the key, which risks other routes being negatively impacted, or driving back and forth to the station himself, which was not an option due to the cut time required to make the aircraft, this FedEx courier, accepting responsibility to do something to keep that Purple Promise, found the nearest hardware store and purchased a very large wrench. With his large wrench he disconnected the drop box from its foundation, loaded it into his van and drove the drop box and the packages it contained back to Irving. The packages were unloaded from the drop box, sorted and loaded onto the plane that night and out for delivery the next morning in their destination cities.
That is a prime example of someone accepting responsibility and showing accountability no matter what the circumstance might be. That level of accountability shared by each FedEx employee is a major contributing factor in earning FedEx the designation of Best Company to Work For thirteen year and counting. So how accountable is your organization and the people that work in it? Is It conditional and selective accountability or does the culture create and reinforce a performance environment of no matter what accountability?
How do you build that type of a no matter what performance environment?
Focus on defining accountability throughout your organization. Reward and recognize those that embody the definition of accountability and intervene where accountability might be lacking and where blame, justifying and making excuses rule the interactions. Step up and lead with your personal commitment to being accountable no matter what.
Learn from the best, contribute to a culture of ‘no matter what’ accountability. It works for FedEx.
For free engagement and performance resources head over to our Resource Vault!
Cornerstone Learning is a performance and leadership consulting organization that has worked with clients all over the world. Our focus is working with individuals and organizations to create performance solutions that deliver top-tier results by inspiring, enabling, and developing employee-led, leader supported, and organization enabled performance. We are able to successfully deliver this through multiple products and services such as employee surveys, online training, performance assessments, and performance coaching. The goal at Cornerstone Learning is to assist our clients in enabling success by developing a dynamic and customized pathway to deliver role model organizational and personal performance.
