Who doesn’t
… want to be successful?
Who doesn’t
… want others to act accountable?
Who doesn’t
… want their team to function as a true team?
I like to share some nuggets from the workshop Holding Others Accountable that I attended, with all credits, of course, to the Accountability Training & Culture Change Company Partners in Leadership:
à Experiences
create beliefs, beliefs influence actions, and actions produce results. Two
good questions to ask in this context are:
1. What experiences am I creating
with my leadership?
2. How often do I intervene at the
crucial level of beliefs?
à If
you want to succeed in holding others accountable, you need clear and agreed
upon expectations and a continuous
process to check in on the progress as opposed to a one-time check when the
deadline has arrived.
à Holding
others accountable starts with identifying a key expectation for each person. A key expectation is
an expectation where you have decided that NOT delivering is NOT an option. Every
key expectation, whether for yourself or others, needs to be framable,
obtainable, repeatable, and measurable (similar to the SMART-approach to
goals).
à
Whatever it is you expect of someone, make sure to have a Why-What-When
meeting, with a word of warning not to skip the WHY (see also Simon Sinek’s TED
talk on the importance of the ‘why’: http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action?language=en)
à Don’t
just ask for buy-in from people. Let them rate on a scale from 1 to 10 how
aligned they are with whatever key expectation you set. This way you allow for
a more nuanced answer than just yes or no and you make it easier to voice
concerns, since ‘7’ can be considered a reasonable score while it opens up the
conversation about how to improve: “What would it take for
you to move from a 7 to a 10?”
à
If someone is NOT making the progress you expect and need them to make, have a
LIFT Conversation:
Listen
for obstacles
Identify
obstacles the person can influence
Facilitate
the Solve It Question
Test for
movement towards the expectation
There was
so much more to this workshop, and there is so much more to accountability.
Another great resource on the topic is the book Question Behind the Question by John G. Miller.
I ask you
again, Who Doesn’t …? Let me
ask you another question: What is keeping you from holding yourself and from
holding others accountable?
