Hey, happy Monday!
Exactly one month ago began theexperiment of redesigning this newsletter guided by reader feedback.
Each week Notes from STRTGY offer a moment for improvement on one of the 4 strategic levels of each organization:
● People
● Processes
● Products
● Profits
In this Note I will consider the level of the People trying to shed light on two English words that even Google translates the same way but are profoundly different: Responsibility e Accountability.
Next week’s topic will be Processes.
Collect all the Notes and let me know Whether they are useful to you and what impact they have on your work. I do care.
So how is the experiment going? Here are the numbers.
The list grew by 6%. The percentage of active members increased by 2 points by filling the gap left by those who decided to unsubscribe, which was 4% instead.
Instead, this seemingly negative figure is particularly interesting when related to the metric that had the most surprising growth and that is theOpen Rate, calculated as the ratio of emails opened to successfully sent, which rose from 35% to 59.7%. Basically, people were not unsubscribing simply because they were not opening emails!
Rightly so, those who no longer found this content of interest made room in their inbox for something more interesting. I am happy for them! That’s the beauty of newsletters: you and not an algorithm decides what to read.
Another important number for understanding the performance of this experiment is the one that indicates the Product Market Fit which for STRTGY, as I write is 45.5 percent. Certainly improvable, it is an excellent starting point considering that according to Sean Ellis, the father of Growth Hacking, the fastest growing organizations have products with PMFs above 40%.
If you want to learn more about this metric and find out how to calculate it you can read the note №90 which talks about this very thing. If, on the other hand, you have not yet responded to the PMF Survey you can do it at this link, it is very fast and you will actively contribute to the project.
Good work!
Always Make Progress!
● PEOPLE / Responsibility vs Accountability.
Who is in charge here?
In a video I watched recently, philosopher Umberto Galimberti was talking about the differences between the Italian and English languages. He said that Italian is a language that leaves interpretation to the reader while English is a language that leaves interpretation only to the writer.
Indeed, when one needs to look for a word that accurately explains a concept, it is most likely that in English there is a specific word while in Italian we have words that span multiple shades of meaning.
This is what happens with the words Responsibility e Accountability. Translated into Italian they both have the same version: responsibility.
Why is it important to us?
The concept of responsibility is a very important force that governs the dynamics between people especially when it is necessary to positively influence their behavior to achieve a common goal.
There are always processes, numbers and problems in the company to which someone’s name is always attached: the name of the person in charge.
Sometimes this empowers people, more often it just gives frustration, and to prevent accountability from becoming a weapon, it is important to distinguish between the two.
Like a hot potato, who takes responsibility?
According to Treccani responsàbile is an adj. and s. m. and f. a. “One who is accountable for one’s actions and behavior, accounting for them and suffering the consequences.”
And this definition is clear enough for us to understand that everyone is responsible. Responsibility is not something that you are invested with at some point along the way and that marks the moment when first you were irresponsible and later you become irresponsible.
Responsibility cannot be assigned To a team or a person. Accountability is a function of maturity and understanding of the effect of one’s actions. It is codified by the values, behaviors, and culture that a group of people decide to accept and (perhaps) share. Everyone is responsible. This is a good translation of Responsibility.
When, on the other hand, we are associating a first and last name with an action, number, process, event, or outcome for the purpose of empowering a person to take action, make decisions, explain the course of action, identify and select options, and most importantly personally engage then we are talking about a different kind of responsibility. What the British call Accountability.
The person who has Accountability is the person who can change things. He is the point of reference for all team members, who, while remaining in charge of the situation, see the Accountable person, the one who has the resources to be able to change things.
The key word here is resources.
You cannot make someone Accountable without being able to allow them to change things, and you should not agree to be Accountable if you do not possess or are unclear about how to obtain the resources.
The task of leaders is precisely to ensure that accountability does not turn into something dangerous and toxic for the culture of the group by providing adequate resources.
What resources are we talking about? Of time, money o talent.
An Accountable person must have the ability to affect the situation by being able to rely on theautonomy of being able to manage the time, his or her own and of the employees for whom he or she is accountable, the ability to access the marketplace to solve problems and to equip his or her team with the skills and abilities needed to move the bar.
Accountability is received but more importantly it is demanded by stepping forward and demonstrating commitment and direction.
For success in life and work, it is vital to become aware of one’s responsibilities and one’s commitments in shaping the course of events.
As a leader you are called upon to bring clarity to these words for yourself and your team and to ensure that everyone is clear about their roles and resources to contribute to the success of the organization.
● LINKS.
🪢 According to HBR, the main reasons for those leaving, or considering leaving, their jobs are 2: 54 percent do not perceive what they do to be of value to the organization itself, and 51 percent feel a lack of a sense of belonging. Purpose and Belonging
👨👧👦 But don’t go too far, always HBR warns you of thetoxic effect of calling the company “Family”
🚀 After 199 days they return to Earth, or rather in the middle of the sea, the four astronauts of SpaceX’s Crew-2 mission.
● SO THEY SAY
“Vision without execution is just hallucination.” –Thomas Edison
