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> (of a person, organization, or institution) required or expected to justify actions or decisions; responsible This is from the OED. There’s no mention of con

> (of a person, organization, or institution) required or expected to justify actions or decisions; responsible This is from the OED. There’s no mention of consequences. You are expected to account for your actions. Like an accountant is expected to keep an accounting of transactions. I’m an on-call engineer, I’m accountable for outages. That means that I give a root-cause analysis when they happen. I’m not given disciplinary action when outages happen, because there are many factors that cause an outage and that’s too much for one person to bear. > what's the point of saying it? This is basic corporate comms. If you’re silent, people may assume something worse than the truth. So you give some explanation (some kind of account is given by the person held accountable).

ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> You are expected to account for your actions. Like an accountant is expected to keep an accounting of transactions. If an accountant lies in his numbers, they go to prison. Why are you missing the most obvious explanation, it’s simply a political point they have to be seen saying, but have no intention of doing - I.e. it’s a lie
- klodolph 3y ago
  There are lots of scenarios where a CEO can go to prison. I don’t think we get a lot of mileage when we argue about the right words used in corporate comms. Like, “this person is accountable to some extent, but not enough for my standards, so the word ‘accountable’ should not be used here.”
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
  what makes it even worse is just the usage of the word accountable is technically correct but awkward as shit because no one actually uses that word in that manner, they use it in the manner you suggested.
  - wilg 3y ago
    I doubt that. More likely people are just motivated to interpret it negatively because it supports their point if they do.
    - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
      most people would say on-call or responsible-for, both having vastly different connotations than accountable. saying accountable isn't wrong per se but it's definitely not the connotations anyone would say on the spot when on-call or responsible-for are vastly more accurate. in particular, on-call brings with it all the baggage that being on-call requires. responsible-for implies you have a responsibility, it does not imply a negative consequence if you fail to meet that responsibility (it doesn't preclude it, but it doesn't imply it either). accountable implies being held accountable which implies a negative consequence. saying you're held accountable for a system very strongly implies there will be a negative consequence for failure whereas responsible-for does not. it's what's technically allowed vs what people actually say.

ClumsyPilot 3y ago

> You are expected to account for your actions. Like an accountant is expected to keep an accounting of transactions. If an accountant lies in his numbers, they go to prison. Why are you missing the most obvious explanation, it’s simply a political point they have to be seen saying, but have no intention of doing - I.e. it’s a lie

klodolph 3y ago
There are lots of scenarios where a CEO can go to prison. I don’t think we get a lot of mileage when we argue about the right words used in corporate comms. Like, “this person is accountable to some extent, but not enough for my standards, so the word ‘accountable’ should not be used here.”
PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
what makes it even worse is just the usage of the word accountable is technically correct but awkward as shit because no one actually uses that word in that manner, they use it in the manner you suggested.
- wilg 3y ago
  I doubt that. More likely people are just motivated to interpret it negatively because it supports their point if they do.
  - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
    most people would say on-call or responsible-for, both having vastly different connotations than accountable. saying accountable isn't wrong per se but it's definitely not the connotations anyone would say on the spot when on-call or responsible-for are vastly more accurate. in particular, on-call brings with it all the baggage that being on-call requires. responsible-for implies you have a responsibility, it does not imply a negative consequence if you fail to meet that responsibility (it doesn't preclude it, but it doesn't imply it either). accountable implies being held accountable which implies a negative consequence. saying you're held accountable for a system very strongly implies there will be a negative consequence for failure whereas responsible-for does not. it's what's technically allowed vs what people actually say.