Boost Your Team’s Accountability Mindset

Posted on July 14th, 2009 by Keith Ferrazzi

Do you want more curiosity and acceptance from your team - the keys to creativity and accountability?

Then here's an exercise I've been thinking about after reading Marilee Adam's great book Change Your Questions, Change Your Life. (Reading it I found out we share a lot of common ground.)

Think about the judgments we make about colleagues every day as we go about our work: What's wrong here? Whose fault is it?

Realize that we ask these kinds of negative questions all the time, when what we should be asking are LEARNING questions: What do I want? What's possible? How can I fix it? This is how you move your mindset from blaming to accountable, rigid to adaptive, self-righteous to inquisitive, protective to curious -- individually and as a team.

Oh, one other thing.  Completing the exercise should maybe entail a rubber band on everybody's wrists to snap when we find ourselves falling into judgmental behavior -- the catholic school nun in me coming out. :)

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4 Responses so far | Have Your Say!

  1. Keith, thanks for the post. Lots of reminders. Especially about the learning questions. We all have a tendency to fall back a bit, but as you point out that's where awareness can help. When we catch ourselves in a pattern which doesn't serve us or others, it's at that point that we can bring the conversation back to a place that does.

    Great post, Josh :-)

  2. Another great concept around asking better questions is 'Afformations' by Noah St. John in his book 'The Secret Code of Success.'

  3. Mark Morris says:
    July 16, 2009 at 5:18 am
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    Great post, Keith! Another great book on the topic of personal accountability is "QBQ: The Question Behind the Question" by John Miller.

    I like the rubber band idea. We all know what we're supposed to do. Sometimes we just need a little reminder.

  4. About questions--Sometimes we have to ask the command question, especially at the end of emails. Questions can be phrased with periods.
    Asking yourself questions reveals your intuition. Intuitive thinking is a great way to reflect. Some of us use a higher power to ponder our mysteries. The important part is getting the answer and being patient to receive it.

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