Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Accountability sinks

aworkinglibrary.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 316 posts

Re: Accountability sinks

#21

Post by from-nibly »

lstodd wrote: post #18
cj wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have 200 candidates, you need to hire somebody to sift through the resumes, have like 5 rounds on interview and everybody chiming in, whoever pulls the trigger or recommends someone is now on the hook for their performance. That's not how accountability works, in the traditional sense. What you described is Person A (accountable for hiring) hiring person B (responsible for screening and evaluating candidates…

heh never works that way. an experienced bureucrat like you describe always has a shit-deflecting canopy. so whatever decisions he personally took are never attributable to him personally. it just so happened.

That's what TFA is saying, and they call it an accountability sink.

Re: Accountability sinks

#23

Post by RachelF »

gmuslera wrote: post #12

Taleb's Skin in the Game seem to be related to this, but from a different optic. Goodhart's Law is also mentioned, but is not the core argument. In the end, is about agency, who have it, and system dynamics to get rid of responsibility.

True.

The modern company is a very very limited liability company:

- Cut corners so your jets crash and kill people (Boeing)?

- Cheat on emissions testing so your product kill people (VW)?

- Hush up drug trial results so you kills people (Pfizer)?

- Sloppy security leads to hundreds of millions of people's personal data being leaked (too many to mention)?

What happens to those in charge? Nothing. Perhaps they leave with a big golden handshake. If it's really bad, they get a don't do it again agreement with the Feds.

No accountability means no feedback/skin in the game. So nothing gets better.

Re: Accountability sinks

#24

Post by travisjungroth »

cj wrote: post #14

This article seems to redefine the word "accountability". In the first sentence: > In The Unaccountability Machine, Dan Davies argues that organizations form “accountability sinks,” structures that absorb or obscure the consequences of a decision such that no one can be held directly accountable for it. Why not just call it "no-consequence sinks"? It's somewhat of an oxymoron to say "accountability" isn't working bec…

I think it’s that the accountability falls into the sink and doesn’t reach the decision maker. I still find accountability poorly defined, even after the effort. Clicking through to the definition helps.

It’s all kinda mushy. Being accountable is hearing and knowing a story. I don’t see why that has to correlate with decision power.

The point of the article could be made much more clearly by talking about systems that leave decision makers not aware of the consequences of their decisions. All the anecdotes in the article fit that pattern.

I think people don’t use the language of decision-consequences because it doesn’t capture an emotional aspect they’d rather not say out loud. They want the decision maker to feel their pain, they want the decision maker to hurt.

Decision makers can be aware of how many unready rooms are caused by less cleaning staff, how many flights they’re cancelling. I’d actually bet they are. But that’s not enough, the harmed person wants to tell their story.

Re: Accountability sinks

#25

Post by cj »

lstodd wrote: post #18
cj wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have 200 candidates, you need to hire somebody to sift through the resumes, have like 5 rounds on interview and everybody chiming in, whoever pulls the trigger or recommends someone is now on the hook for their performance. That's not how accountability works, in the traditional sense. What you described is Person A (accountable for hiring) hiring person B (responsible for screening and evaluating candidates…

heh never works that way. an experienced bureucrat like you describe always has a shit-deflecting canopy. so whatever decisions he personally took are never attributable to him personally. it just so happened.

what you’re describing is not someone who is accountable for something.

In the hiring example, perhaps the person A stops being accountable for hiring someone successful in the role, and rather they are accountable for successfully hiring persons B who is capable of hiring someone to fill the role.

Essentially creating an accountability chain. If you want to describe a logical chain of accountability instead as a “accountability sink”, then I’d go along with that.

It’s true that accountability chains can be difficult to keep track of and the longer they get, the blurrier they get.

The comments here are grossly oversimplifying this concept.

Re: Accountability sinks

#26

Post by gradschoolfail »

aeturnum wrote: post #17

When I was a grad student in STS I was considering doing a project on how software can function as an "agency adjuster" where individuals come to bear the risks of something (generally an economic transaction) and the majority of the profits go to the owner of the software. In many ways Uber & related services are about allowing individuals to take on very low-probability high-acuity downside risk for a small fee.

Hmm, the analysis with respect to FOSS could also interesting. might make less sense to consider profit/compensation. Might be more useful to think of responsibility flows.. (or sources as well as sinks)

Re: Accountability sinks

#27

Post by [deleted] »

cj wrote: post #14

This article seems to redefine the word "accountability". In the first sentence: > In The Unaccountability Machine, Dan Davies argues that organizations form “accountability sinks,” structures that absorb or obscure the consequences of a decision such that no one can be held directly accountable for it. Why not just call it "no-consequence sinks"? It's somewhat of an oxymoron to say "accountability" isn't working bec…

[deleted]

Re: Accountability sinks

#28

Post by 23B1 »

cj wrote: post #14

This article seems to redefine the word "accountability". In the first sentence: > In The Unaccountability Machine, Dan Davies argues that organizations form “accountability sinks,” structures that absorb or obscure the consequences of a decision such that no one can be held directly accountable for it. Why not just call it "no-consequence sinks"? It's somewhat of an oxymoron to say "accountability" isn't working bec…

Author is describing a specific phenomena different from shared accountability.

Re: Accountability sinks

#29

Post by cj »

23B1 wrote: post #28
cj wrote: post #14

This article seems to redefine the word "accountability". In the first sentence: > In The Unaccountability Machine, Dan Davies argues that organizations form “accountability sinks,” structures that absorb or obscure the consequences of a decision such that no one can be held directly accountable for it. Why not just call it "no-consequence sinks"? It's somewhat of an oxymoron to say "accountability" isn't working bec…

Author is describing a specific phenomena different from shared accountability.

I disagree with the authors definition of accountability:

> 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.

No.

You can absolutely be accountable for something that you can’t change a decision about. Simple example: You’re a branding agency and you decide to rename X to Y. (No pun intended). The rebrand to Y fails. You’re accountable for the failure, but likely don’t have the ability to change anything by the time you know the results of your decision.

Edit: ok, fair I agree. Bad example. A simpler example would be the person in the article continuing to point the the boss above them until there’s no one left. The chain would break somewhere along the way, but the broken chain is communication rather than one of accountability.

The information may not reach the person able to make a change. But that doesn’t make them not accountable. If that person is unable to make a change because they’re in vacation for a month without anyone filling in, that person is accountable for both the results AND future results that are caused by not having someone monitor/reroute their acckuntability.

Re: Accountability sinks

#30

Post by eduction »

cj wrote: post #29
23B1 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author is describing a specific phenomena different from shared accountability.

I disagree with the authors definition of accountability: > 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. No. You can absolutely be accountable for something that you can’t change a decision about. Simple example: You’re a branding agency and you decide to rename X to Y. (No pun intended). Th…

In that example, accountability is not with the branding firm at any point. Someone at the client that hired the branding firm is accountable for approving the rebrand and someone at the client is accountable for leaving it in place.

The branding firm certainly does not seem to have performed well, from the scenario you described. But accountability is not the same as performance or even culpability.

Post reply on HN