Santa Claus, CommandHound, and Accountability in the Workplace

A long long time ago, Santa Claus realized that accountability in the workplace was critical to make sure things get done at Christmas time. How else would he be able to visit millions of places and hundreds of countries in one single night?

Santa Claus’s Supply Chain Relies on Accountability at All Levels
Let’s start with understanding the complexity and magnitude of Santa’s supply chain:

• There are close to 2 billion children in the world
• Average present is 30 cm3
• A 40ft container can only hold 70 m3 or roughly 2,600 presents
• At this rate Santa would need 77,000 trucks to carry that amount of presents from his shop to the ships or airplanes waiting to take to his depots around the world
• The largest container ships can carry 10,000 40ft containers so it would take 8 ships to carry all those presents to distribution points around the world

Can you imagine the role that checklists play in such a logistical nightmare scenario? How do you make sure that all the previous steps have been completed without anything falling through the cracks?

Accountability to the Rescue

I am guessing that as with any large enterprise, Santa Claus instilled a culture of accountability in the workplace from the beginning. Elves, and even reindeer, had to buy into and be committed to the overall mission of the enterprise, feel empowered to execute the tasks that are assigned to them, and feel an overall sense of pride that their contribution is critical.
Implementing a culture of accountability is not easy. Change is not easy. However, the rewards of a committed and accountable workforce are significant.

Technology to the Rescue

Today, technology (e.g., Internet of things, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, machine learning, biometrics) is changing the world and disrupting industries across the board. Making sure things get done is now more important than ever.
CommandHound was created with this objective in mind: To help businesses drive accountability as they attempt to keep up with their fast changing environment.

Santa Claus could also use CommandHound to “trust but verify” at a glance that things are actually moving along on a timely basis. CommandHound’s dashboard constantly highlights areas that need attention to keep things moving. Spending less time on oversight would allow Santa to spend more time on more strategic endeavors, like investigating the feasibility of things like:

• Autonomous drones to deliver packages directly to children without exhausted reindeers
• 3D printing for distributed toy-making closer to where children are
• Virtual reality to see how things are going around the world on Christmas day without leaving the comfort of his home in the North Pole

Next Steps

Accountability is key for any high-performance organization (HPO). Would you like to learn more about how CommandHound can help you instill a culture of accountability at your workplace?