3 Steps to Fine-Tune Your Accountability Strategy

Posted on March 10th, 2010 by Meghna Majmudar

meghnaisfabulousMeghna heads up the High Impact Teams consulting practice at Ferrazzi Greenlight with Keith. She is based in New York City. If you have questions or want to increase your team's impact, contact her at mmajmudar at ferrazzigreenlight dot com.

As a consultant, I’ve been discussing accountability with executives for a while. When it comes up, I join everyone in the room as we nod our heads and agree to its importance and the need for more.

But to come clean, I had a limited understanding of what accountability truly was and how to increase it until recently.

Accountability, in my new and expanded definition, is about taking enough ownership of a situation to get the results you want. It's about refusing to be a victim of circumstances.

The following three steps helped fine-tune my accountability at work and at home:

1. Identify the areas in your life where you're not getting the results you want – chances are, you're not taking enough accountability for the situation. That's good news, because it means you have the ability to create change.

2. Once you’ve identified these areas, list the steps you could take immediately to move one step closer to your goal. For example, most people agree it is difficult to find a new job in the current economic environment. Instead of being a victim to this situation, list the people who could advise you and who are likely to have inroads to opportunities, and send them an e-mail asking for coffee.

3. Take it slow! Accountability is messy stuff. If you’ve been passively acting the victim, realize that you're going to have a lot of work to do as you take more ownership in different areas of your life. Going back to the job example, don’t expect your upcoming coffee dates to produce immediate job opportunities – chances are, your mentors will give you all sorts of advice and suddenly you'll be deep in the work of updating your resume, improving your elevator pitch, and so on. Just take one bite at a time, and go at a speed that makes you comfortable.

It’s powerful stuff – I’d love to hear how you’ve taken more accountability in your life!

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6 Responses so far | Have Your Say!

  1. In my situation, accountability is more of a mindset than a specific action... although one leads to the other. By accepting responsibility for your current situation, it frees you to focus on yourself rather than other people.

    This is a prerequisite for accountability because to be truly accountable you have to realize that the only person you can control is yourself. You can't control the community or your customers. You may think you can control your employees or your vendors, but in reality, you can't control their mindset... only influence it.

    Once you've realized everything is your fault (or your responsibility), it frees you to figure out what actions to take to make yourself accountable.

    Mindset leads to accountability. Accountability leads to actions. Actions lead to success.

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  3. In my situation, accountability is more of a mindset than a specific action... although one leads to the other. By accepting responsibility for your current situation, it frees you to focus on yourself rather than other people.

    This is a prerequisite for accountability because to be truly accountable you have to realize that the only person you can control is yourself. You can't control the community or your customers. You may think you can control your employees or your vendors, but in reality, you can't control their mindset... only influence it.

    Once you've realized everything is your fault (or your responsibility), it frees you to figure out what actions to take to make yourself accountable.

    Mindset leads to accountability. Accountability leads to actions. Actions lead to success.

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