312. The Three Things Every Successful Company Needs

Every successful company is built on the foundation like a three-legged stool, propped up by responsibility, accountability, and compliance. Your entire career relies on this.

Mar 03, 2025

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If you’re a criminal and happen to get sentenced to death row, you are 7x more likely to die of natural causes than you are to be executed.

Prisons don’t execute many people.
That probably doesn’t come as a surprise to you. It shouldn’t.

When the justice system commits to killing a criminal, the corrections system isn’t in any rush to get it done.

Why should they be?

There isn’t any benefit for them to hurry up and kill the person. In fact, they’re actually demotivated to move fast.

And this seems like a good time to talk about accountability.

When The Process Falls Apart

I don’t know your position on capital punishment and, frankly, I don’t care. Despite how I started this little ditty, we’re not going to talk about killing people. That’s not what this rant is about.

It was just an analogy.

The justice system, in my story, represents any department in your organization. The corrections system represents any other department.

The prisoner, in this analogy, is the embodiment of the responsibility that’s passed from one department to another.

Translating this to your business, one department has a responsibility to do something and, once completed, they hand it off to another department to fulfill their part of the process.

That’s what the justice system does with corrections - they hand off the responsibility.

Let me give you an everyday example that I hope you can better understand.

A sales team’s responsibility is to close new business. Once they complete their task, they hand the responsibility of the client to the account team.

But what if the account team, like the corrections system in the death penalty scenario, has no desire or motivation to fulfill their end of the bargain?

What happens if the account team says, “We’re too busy, we aren’t going to do anything with the new responsibility you gave us We’ll just let them sit around until our relationship with them dies of natural causes”?

Suddenly there’s a breakdown.
Suddenly a business no longer works.

And here’s the thing - this happens all the time and you may not even realize it.

Your Company Is A Three-Legged Stool

Three important things must work in harmony for a company to be effective and efficient. They are: responsibility, accountability, and compliance.

These behaviors are like a three-legged stool - each one relies on the other for everything to work in harmony. If one of them fails, the stool collapses and no longer works effectively.

You know what, I should probably give you the definitions of each of these concepts. That would’ve been a good idea to do earlier. But here we are.

So here you go.

The Meaning of Accountability, Responsibility and Compliance

Definition #1:

The duty to complete a task that is assigned to you.

You may think that’s the definition of accountability, but you’re wrong. That’s responsibility. It’s an important difference.

Here, read it again.

Responsibility is the duty to complete a task that is assigned to you.

The Compliant Company

Imagine a company with a staff of compliant people who have no accountability. (As it turns out, I don’t need much imagination here. These are the companies that hire me as a leadership/team coach to quickly fix them)

In this compliant-but-not-accountable company, the staff will tend to complete the tasks they are supposed to, but they never take initiative.

If the rules say they need to fill out a form in triplicate, they will usually fill out that form three times.
If they are supposed to work from 9 to 5, they will work those hours and only those hours, regardless of whatever else is going on.
They won’t proactively address problems or creatively create solutions.

They are not accountable.
They’re just compliant.

And that company isn’t going to grow.

Because compliance is not enough.

Compliance keeps the lights on.
Accountability drives growth, innovation, and leadership.

As a leader (regardless of your title), it is your job to cultivate a culture of accountability while maintaining compliance and ensuring the individuals have a strong sense of responsibility.

There are 5 things you need to do to get there.

1. Set clear expectations

Make sure every employee knows what success looks like for them (individually), for their team (collectively), and for the company (whateverly). All three levels matter.

2. Empower People

Let your team members make decisions on their own and be clear on what decisions need to come through you. If they make a bad decision once, help them learn from it. If they keep repeating the error, that’s a whole different article to read.

3. Reward Responsibility

Celebrate the people who proactively take responsibility - even when they fail.

4. Lead By Example

Be the model of accountability, responsibility, and compliance. There is absolutely no downside for you, and the upside is massive.

5. Take the Course on How To 10x Your Teams Productivity

It’s a life hack on how to quickly create a culture of responsibility, accountability, and compliance.

There’s a free intro webinar here.
Sign up and learn more about the 1-hour course here.

(Spoiler Alert: every registrant gets a free 1-on-1 coaching session with me)

How To Create Balance And Harmony

The most successful leaders know how to create balance and harmony between accountability, responsibility, and compliance. They don’t just complete tasks.

They take ownership.
They follow through.
They hold themselves and others accountable.

So, if your team feels like their job is best described as “dead man walking”, it’s about time you looked at where your proverbial 3-legged stool has fallen apart.

Because if you want to build a company that grows, innovates, and actually gets things done, these things aren’t optional.

They’re everything

Do you want to understand how you are doing with accountability, responsibility, and compliance? Book a free consultation now.