The fundamental law of accountability
It is important to be clear at this stage, exactly what an accountability sink is, and how they are constructed. Itâs not just the way in which the hourly paid worker has been set up to act as a human shield. In order to make the sink effective, you need a combination *of things: that person, plus a policy that thereâs no way to appeal the decision by communicating with a higher level of management. (Even if you somehow managed to get the CEOâs phone number, you would come up against the fact that the policy was in place precisely to protect them from making that decision personally.)
So the crucial thing at work here seems to be the delegation of the decision to a rule book, removing the human from the process and thereby severing the connection thatâs needed in order for the concept of accountability to make sense. You could even coin a sort of law management here:
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
The construction of accountability sinks has damaging implications for the flow of information. For an accountability sink to function, it has to break a link; it has to prevent the feedback of the person affected by the decision from affecting the operation of the system. The decision has to be fully determined by the policy, which means that it cannot be altered by any information that wasnât anticipated. If somebody can override the accountability sink and overrule a policy that is in danger of generating a ridiculous or disgusting outcome, then that person is potentially accountable for the outcome.
*If nothing else, youâll have a few tips about how to set things up in your own job to divert any troublesome accountability that might be building up.