Accountability Conversations
Tom Costello and Lynn Harris
“You choose to be accountable - it can’t be forced on you.”
All organizations need the commitment of their people to achieve performance and results. As leaders, you are often measured by how well you motivate your team members to keep their commitments and deliver. It seems to make sense then to ensure you have conversations that hold others accountable. Author of ’The ABCs of Success’, Bob Proctor calls accountability ‘the glue that ties commitment to results’.
The problem, however, is traditional ways of holding others accountable rarely work in a sustainable way.
How often do you have a conversation to hold others accountable, only to realize that by the end of the conversation, they haven’t become more accountable ... you have!
In their book, Authentic Conversations, Jamie and Maren Showkeir describe this dynamic:
The notion that you can hold other people accountable is a myth, a dangerous illusion that denies a fundamental reality of human existence. People always have a choice about their beliefs and actions. You choose to be accountable - it can’t be forced on you. When you continue to have conversations about holding others accountable, you are only perpetuating the myth and the parent-child dynamic.
Burdened with a mindset of responsibility for holding others accountable, our internal dialogue can take on a punitive quality slipping into internal negative thoughts like ...” Here we go again, I wonder what excuses they’ll have this time” or “If I don’t chase them, nothing will get done.”
You can bet the mindset of the person you are speaking to will have similar thoughts...” here we go again, they’re always on my back” or “I’m dreading the conversation, they will bang on and on about how important it is for me to get this done”.
You can see the negative cycle ... the frustrated punisher and the defensive victim.
So, what can we do?
In our work with organizations, we encourage leaders to experiment with a different conversation; one that supports execution through candid dialogue and enables others to learn and hold themselves accountable.
In this conversation we focus on three principles:
Choose a ‘Learning’ mindset.
Promote insight through asking more questions.
Recognize and name resistance.
1: Choose a Learning Mindset.
Our mindset will always inform and influence how we conduct accountability conversations.
Imagine the different conversation you will have if you shift from a mindset of “It’s my job as a leader to hold others accountable” to “It’s my job as a leader to help others hold themselves accountable.”
Imagine the different behaviors you might use if you let go of the need to judge the other person, and instead adopt a mindset of “I want to help this person learn about their own relationship to accountability so that they can perform better.”
If you are on the receiving end of an accountability conversation, imagine how helpful it might be to let go of any defensiveness and instead have a mindset of “If I stay open and curious there might be something for me to learn here.”
Choosing a different mindset is challenging, whether you are the person initiating the accountability conversation, or the person on the receiving end. Experimenting with thinking differently takes honesty and courage because we need to question our existing beliefs and assumptions. We encourage you to deliberately practice a learning mindset and notice the impact it has on your own and others’ personal accountability.
2: Promote Insight Through Asking More Questions: The CRIA process
For accountability conversations to promote learning and insight, we need to ask purposeful questions, listen, and explore the answers. Part of our job as leaders is to develop our people. In our desire to want others to do things differently, we often miss the learning opportunities that accountability conversations provide.
We have created a simple, yet powerful four-step process called CRIA. It helps you to ask questions that generate learning and insight from commitments that have been made and either met or not met.
The CRIA Process
C – Commitment
R – Reality
I – Insight
A - Action
Commitment: Confirm and explore the commitment made and agree what the person said they would do.
Reality: Explore reality in relation to the commitment – what has/hasn’t been done?
Insight: Use open questions to genuinely explore and promote insight into how commitments were met/not met. What happened? What can we learn?
Action: Make new commitments based on insights and learning.
Practicing this simple four-step process enables you to help your people hold themselves accountable, rather than avoiding the conversation or taking on the accountability yourself. For sample questions to help you navigate each stage of this accountability conversation see CRIA Process.
3: Notice and Work with Resistance.
Resistance is a natural human response to change and is likely to show up when we have accountability conversations, because they sometimes trigger underlying fears, such as, loss of control or loss of status. The first step in working with resistance is to notice it. Some examples of how resistance shows up in accountability conversations are:
Silence or withdrawal.
Repeatedly asking for more information.
Superficially agreeing (to hasten the end of the conversation).
Laughter, joking, making light of the situation.
Using circumstances e.g. we’ve done that before, and it doesn’t work.
In his book, Flawless Consulting, Peter Block describes numerous ways that resistance shows up and highlights the importance of gently, but firmly, naming the resistance and then exploring and learning from it, rather than trying to get rid of it. For example:
Silence or withdrawal: I notice you’ve been quiet for some time, what’s going on for you right now?
Repeatedly asking for more information: This is the third time you’ve asked for more information, tell me more about why you need this information.
Superficially agreeing (to hasten the end of the conversation): You seem to be agreeing with everything very quickly. How are you really thinking about this?
Laughter, joking, making light of the situation: You seem very light-hearted about this situation. How do you really feel?
Using circumstances e.g. we’ve done that before, and it doesn’t work: It seems that whatever I suggest you don’t think it will work. Do you notice yourself doing this?
Working with resistance as part of an accountability conversation contributes to learning and insight, which leads to more informed commitments and follow-through.
The next time you are in a situation where you are disappointed or frustrated with a colleague who has not met a commitment, you now have some different options. You can:
Adopt a learning mindset to help others hold themselves accountable.
Promote insight through asking more questions using the CRIA process.
Notice and name resistance to enable even more learning and create commitment to results.
Tom Costello and Lynn Harris are founding Partners at Leadership Mindset Partners