How do you drive accountability into a Demand Generation organization?

In order to drive accountability, teams within the Demand Generation organization must have three things be clear by their Leadership team:

• Goals: What are the results each team is set up to deliver? Do the teams share goals? There needs to be clear expectations set in order to make teams understand what they have to do. 
• Measurement: How are we measuring the goals set? Are the metrics defined the same way for everyone? Is there a consistent dashboard or reporting tool(s) teams can use to track how they are doing meeting their goals?
• Roles & Responsibilities: This often gets blurred and various teams do not understand their charters. Leadership needs to set clear expectations on which team owns what, who will provide feedback, and who will be the final approver(s). This can cause a lot of confusion and if those remits are set upfront, it will help eliminate many questions down the road. 

Demand generation is to create pipeline, and transparently, it's easy to cheat and create volumes of leads. Accountability lies in quality, and so measuring teams on the metric that is a true indication of quality is essential for ensuring teams target the right audience and it's also a measure for fit intent- what leads are truly the right fit (product fit/timing fit, high intent/high). Whether you are creating pipeline for a self-serve buying process, or a sales-led process, marketing/demand gen should also use closed-won as a lagging indicator...in fact, marketing should monitor all stages of the funnel- this data should drive investment decisions. Closed won, not closed done ;) 

To drive accountability in a demand generation organization, you'll find there are a few key ingredients for success.

• Well-defined expectations. As a demand gen leader, you have to be incredibly clear about roles and responsibilities. Clarity leads to accountability and ownership, which are imperative for efficient and successful operations.
• Clear goals. What is your team's north star? This needs to be defined so that everyone knows how their day-to-day work contributes to the larger goals. There are various goal frameworks such as OKRs and SMART goals; it's less about the framework and more about having goals and milestones that you work towards.
• Feedback loops. Ongoing performance reviews or feedback loops are critical and help in setting expectations. However, feedback shouldn't wait for a performance review. Regular feedback should be a practice to avoid surprises.

Ultimately, this comes down to crisp communication with clear swimlanes. If the team understands what is expected of them and what success looks like, accountability becomes a natural aspect of the team.