Most organizations believe they are practicing accountability. What they are often practicing is performance.

Something goes wrong and the conversation begins almost immediately, but the purpose of the conversation quietly changes before anyone notices. Instead of trying to understand the sequence of decisions that produced the outcome, the group begins trying to restore certainty.

Uncertainty is uncomfortable in professional environments because it threatens competence, so the room searches for a stable explanation.

A person becomes that stability.

Once a cause can be located in someone, the tension settles even if the problem itself has not been understood.

This is the moment accountability turns into theatre.

Everyone is participating in a ritual that feels serious. Questions are asked, statements are made, intentions are explained, positions clarified. The conversation carries emotional weight, sometimes even relief, because a narrative has formed. But narrative is not mechanism.

A story about what happened is not the same thing as identifying what decision, assumption, or interpretation created the result.

True accountability studies causality…

Theatre studies resolution. Under pressure the mind prefers explanation over examination. We describe circumstances, defend reasoning, or locate error in another person because each option closes the emotional loop quickly.

What remains open is the operational loop.

The next time a similar situation appears, the same choices emerge because nothing in the system changed. The organization feels responsive while remaining unchanged.

This is why teams can have many difficult conversations and still experience repeating problems. The discussions are real, the emotions are real, but the learning is partial. Learning requires lingering inside the incomplete picture long enough to identify a point where behaviour can be different next time. Without that point, accountability becomes symbolic. It demonstrates seriousness rather than producing adjustment.

The discipline is not to avoid hard conversations but to slow them down.

To stay with observable sequence instead of interpretive meaning. What was known at the moment of the decision, what assumption filled the gap, what alternative was available, and what would now be done differently. When those answers exist, improvement follows naturally because the future has been made more predictable.

Organizations rarely choose theatre deliberately.

They drift into it because resolution feels productive. Yet progress comes from precision, not closure. One calms the room, the other changes the outcome.

Performance theatre ends when the goal of the conversation shifts from restoring confidence to discovering cause.

Strategic Reflection Prompt

Think about your last workplace issue or challenge. If that same situation happened next week, would behaviour actually change, or would people simply be better able to describe what happened?

About Giselle

I’m Giselle Hudson — Organization & People Development Sensemaker™, MCODE® Legacy Coach, writer and musician. I help leaders and independent professionals close the gap between strategy and execution by making invisible friction visible, so direction can finally translate into results.

If execution isn’t matching intent and you can’t quite see why, message me on WhatsApp. We’ll start with a brief Clarity Conversation to understand what you’re facing and decide together whether a focused Sensemaking Session is the right next step.