---
id: "contrarian-accountability-ignores-choices"
type: "contrarian-insight"
source_timestamps: ["§ What Is Structured Empowerment?"]
tags: ["accountability", "performance-management", "contrarian-insight"]
related: ["concept-key-results-accountability"]
challenges: "The conventional view that managers should audit or evaluate the specific process choices an employee makes to ensure quality."
speakers: ["Tatiana Sandino"]
sources: ["tail1"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-tail1"
originDay: 1
articleStem: "hbr-tail-105-fast-growing-better-decisions"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/05/how-fast-growing-companies-can-make-better-decisions"
sourceTitle: "How Fast-Growing Companies Can Make Better Decisions"
---
# Accountability should ignore the specific choices an employee makes

**Contrarian insight.** In [[concept-structured-empowerment|structured empowerment]], employees are assessed **purely on key results**. The author explicitly states they are assessed **"not on which options they chose."**

This runs counter to many quality-assurance models that **audit the specific steps or choices** an employee took to arrive at a result (see [[concept-key-results-accountability]]).

**Challenges:** the conventional view that managers should audit or evaluate the specific process choices an employee makes to ensure quality.

> **Counter-perspective (enrichment).** Pure outcome-only accountability can miss unsafe or unethical *processes* — a real risk in healthcare, finance, and other high-reliability or regulated domains where consistent procedure is itself part of the outcome.