Actionable Steps · Some Examples
Let’s dive a little deeper into something that, I believe, can really propel us as an organization to the next level: accountability.
What defines us is our people. ****We strive to recruit the best students; those who are passionate about the work we do, committed to Hack4Impact and their teams, and those who we trust to put in time and execute.
The key here is to have a deep trust between each other. It is the cornerstone to growth: being comfortable to take risks, making mistakes, and learning. The stronger the trust, the more open and more respectful and positive our teams will be, which results in the greater likelihood of creating something incredible and impactful. However, trust doesn’t just get handed over. So how do we achieve this high trust? It takes accountability, which builds up trust whenever two parties, whether it’s between people, teams, organizations, are consistently accountable to each other.
Accountability is made up of two parts: commitments and follow through. Commitments are promises we make to each other. But without being true to them and communicating how your commitments are advancing - the follow through - the commitments we make are meaningless. One of the reasons we, as an organization, remain intentionally small, with around ~35 active members at a time, is to build and maintain such a high trust and accountable culture.
In order to ensure we are accountable to each other, we create process. Let’s take a software developer’s process. If they are new to Hack4Impact, they have a straightforward path to creating commitments and following through with them, thus accumulating trust. They have more detailed (defined “what,” “when”, “how”) scoped tasks to accomplish along with a tight feedback loop with their Project leads. This allows for leads to quickly catch them when problems arise - without letting it dwindle and destroying trust/creating bitterness => generating a superficial environment - and helping them learn and grow from their mistakes. The key here is honesty and not being afraid of conflict, which could cause tension or discomfort.
And as the trust piggy bank fills up, we give more freedom and space to what these commitments are and how and when they follow through, even if those promises are much bigger. More experienced Software Developers at Hack4Impact would see a more individual-oriented relationship with their project leads, where there’s more focus on support and mutual reasoning - not just defining specific tasks (more ownership on small sections of the project). This enables the other party to experiment more, take risks, in these commitments, building even more trust. The outcome of this is a highly productive and stronger relationship, propelling Hack4Impact’s mission of fostering the wider adoption of technology as a tool for social impact. This type of relationship is epitomized by relationships between Directors and Leads. We let them control their vision and ideas, and trust that they will deliver on their promised product that they scoped out (commitment) in the span of a semester or 2 (follow through). Feedback isn’t as frequent, but is still a necessary component of growth and trust - with standards of performance and evaluations being realigned during feedback.
Accountability isn’t just between a leader and their team members. Instead it’s a team game. It is the desire to not let another team member down, taking and giving constructive feedback, and fulfilling commitments such that others may perform their own jobs to collectively work towards their unified goal. Slowly, as each member deposits trust into the team’s trust piggy bank, the team transforms to be in harmony with each other in their collective vision of what they are trying achieve, resulting in shared goals in which each member of the team trusts each other to collaborate and deliver on what they committed to.
And the more genuine the involvement, the more sincere and sustained participation in analyzing and solving problems, the greater their dedication to what they create. People value differences in perspective - they respect them, build on strengths and compensate for weaknesses. That is what we strive to do - to deliver the best product for the non-profits we collaborate with that empower them to further their mission. It is teamwork, team building, the development of unity and creativity with other human beings that allows us to be effective. Finally, this not only influences the effectiveness of our teams and deliverables, but also has a high impact on our community, on the friendships we’ve made in this organization, as we are not being afraid to be vulnerable to each other and fail - respecting each other and our differences because we trust.