Agile feedback drives accountability and sustained behavior change

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe a data-driven approach to driving accountability for behavior change at the individual level, i.e. the “Development Check-In” (DCI). It has become an accepted reality that 70 per cent of all organizational change efforts fail. The reasons cited are many and include such factors as a lack of focus on the hard and soft sides of the organization, misaligned reward systems, disengaged leadership and new interventions introduced at the expense of existing efforts. While all of these are important, we argue that accountability is the most critical element for ensuring an intervention sticks and delivers lasting results. Design/methodology/approach The DCI reflects the principles of agility and accountability, and has been used with great success in a large consumer products organization. The paper begins with an overview of the need for feedback tools to drive accountability, followed by a discussion of the design and process of the DCI. Findings Highlights from the authors’ use of the customized process to measure and reinforce leader capability development over time are then provided. The paper concludes with some recommendations and additional considerations. Originality/value Behavior change is not easy and requires focus, direction and a way of measuring progress. The DCI is an example of an agile multi-rater feedback accountability mechanism that provides leaders and managers with targeted and positively oriented feedback to support their continued development. This type of tool can be used beyond leadership development for a variety of types of interventions because it is based on sound organization development principles.