Secrets to Personal Excellence 1.0: Get accountable!
posted by Mike Shur
I’ll forego the usual blogger mea culpa shout-out about not blogging enough. No one I know blogs “enough”, but the trick is to keep coming back and keeping the spirit alive.
Today I’ll share one personal secret that I’ve just come across twice in one week: signing up to be accountable to one specific person.
What does this mean? We’re all accountable to our families, our clients, bosses, governments, and obligations. . .even ourselves. But it’s easy to set aside those responsibilities when a real live person is asking for something RIGHT NOW that is so urgent at this moment. General obligations go out the door and the particular and peculiar puppy-dog eyes win the day.
However, when I know that there will be one particular person, one pair of dedicated and expectant eyes, reading this space EVERY DAY. Commenting on it, EVERY DAY. It gets me to just buckle down, nail my feet to the floor and my tuchas to the seat, and just pound out an entry.
To that end I will give a shout out to my partner in writerly crime, Ms. Breanne Potter of the blog called “Speaking of the MBTI“. Thanks for keeping me honest and dedicated.
To that end I offer this challenge to everyone reading this:
1. Pick an activity or obligation that has you stuck.
2. Ask a friend or colleague to be your “accountability guru”.
3. Stick to it!
Tell me how this works for you.
bpotter
July 14th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
What a great piece of advice! Many people get a personal trainer or a work out buddy at the gym for the same reason. When you know someone is waiting on you, there is additional motivation to follow through on the commitment.
A friend of mine was in severe debt, and though she wanted to pay her bills there were too many temptations that took her off track. She picked a friend to be her debt buddy. That friend kept a list of all of her bills and reminded her when they were due and urged her to pay more each time on her credit cards. She also took her debt buddy shopping with her to monitor her purchases.
Mike- I’ll be your “accountability guru” anytime!
keithmc
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:27 am
Accountability is tough (especially for NFs), we don’t like to be seen as holding others accountable as it’s easier to create a different story that fits our need to excuse a lack of accountability that tackle what we perceive to be a difficult situation face on.
I like the approach of picking a friend to by your accountability guru, this removes most if not all of the uncomfortable situation.
Another approach is to get used to being accountable yourself and actually hold yourself accountable in public. Here’s an excerpt from a blog post I wrote:
It is easier to hold yourself accountable than to hold others accountable. It is easier to stand up and say you didn’t do what you agreed to do than call out your colleagues who haven’t done what they said they would do. But if you don’t call out those that didn’t do what they said they would do you create an environment where it is OK to not to complete tasks and to ‘hold yourself’ accountable only when it works for you. In short you are accepting low standard.
Leaders and managers must be 100% consistent. If you are not consistent in accountability you will confuse your employees.
When did you last call yourself out for not following through on a commitment? Was it because it was convenient for you or perhaps it met your own agenda?
When was the last time you called someone else out for not following through on a commitment? Have you always done this consistently?
What are you going to do next week to ensure your team operates in an environment where they hold each other accountable – not accept low standards?
Be accountable for this action