Restoring Accountability
Accountability and personal responsibility cannot be mandated. They are individual choices, but choices for which we must hold responsibility.
A man I knew was complaining about the clients, the work, the demands, the expectations. He was even complaining about his life. And he had excuses for every failure and for every complaint. Everything was outside of his control, or so he thought. Join my pity party. Drinks are on me.
That man was me. A colleague said “You make a decision every day to walk through that door and work here. No one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to do this. And when you do, you lose your right to complain about it.”
Ouch. It stung. I knew that they were 100% right. At the time I truly despised that person for that comment and breaking up my party. Though I may have felt trapped, I did choose to walk through that door every morning. Truth be told it wasn’t all that bad. Actually, it was pretty damn good. I actually had it easy and had I so chosen, I could have build a small dynasty for myself.
Every morning I packed my bag full of excuses and took that with me to the office.
But like so many are, I had been infected. I caught the negativity and excuse making virus and didn’t realize it until the negativity had spread throughout every fiber of my being and clouded my vision such that I had lost my way. I didn’t even know there was any other way. Bitterness has set in and left me cold and without passion. I may as well have been dead – metaphorically speaking. I was not taking 100% responsibility and accountability for my own life. Every morning I packed my bag full of excuses and took that with me to the office.
I am 100% responsible for everything in my life.
I had lost touch. So I left and went into a self-styled “recovery program” – self-imposed sabbatical where I completely decompressed and did a lot of reading. It took months to I realized just how bad I had been. I had excuse after excuse as to why I was unhappy. But I finally accepted that my colleague was right. It was my own choice to walk through those doors. And that I am 100% responsible for everything in my life.
In an organization, saying you will “raise the bar” and hold other people accountable will not solve the problem. All too often it will only serve to exasperate it. Raising the bar does not necessarily give people the desire to reach it. And holding people accountable, does not affect change to create personal accountability in people. Although it may be possible to “prime”1 people to make the individual choice to be more accountable and take more responsibility, it will not work with a simple mandate. As someone in a leadership role, you need to inspire and encourage everyone to come to the realization on their own that personal responsibility and accountability starts with their own life.
So what does one do? How can accountability be restored to an environment where it is on shaky ground?
Here are tips to get you started:
1. Be a highly-visible example of accountability. Only after you have a proven record of personal accountability can you state that you expect the same from colleagues.
2. Show that you do not provide excuses2 for your life and business circumstances. That you take 100% responsibility for the state of your life and of the business.
3. Make it clear that you expect your colleagues to do the same – no excuses – at least regarding work-related issues.
4. Never shift the blame and never permit it in your organization. Take the hit no matter the outcome.
5. Set a rule: habitual complaining will not be tolerated. Complaining goes hand-in-hand with excuses. Eliminate one and you can eliminate the other. If you are not using any excuses, then you have no ability to complain and whine about your situation. Legitimate complaints should be taken directly to upper management and issues should be addressed. But you need to cut ties with habitual complainers.
If you still have some who use excuses, engage in blame-shifting, or continue complaining, it is a sign that they are not embracing personal accountability and it may simply be time to part ways.
1) “primed”: Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell. P.52-58
2) A list of excuses from “Excuses Begone”, by Dr. Wayne Dyer, that you should reverse in your mind: It will be difficult, It’s going to be risky, It will take a long time, There will be family drama, I don’t deserve it, It’s not my nature, I can’t afford it, No one will help me, It has never happened to me before, I’m not strong enough, I am not smart enough, I am too old, The rules will not let me, It is too big, I don’t have the energy, It is my personal family history, I am too busy, I am too scared.
