How can crucial conversations help you drive accountability?

Shame on us all. 

That was how the email began that day. It went onto detail how each of them had failed in bringing this project to closure. 

Rheas wasn’t literate enough about the project. She needed to study more. 

Sam was held guilty of slow execution. He needed to buck up and ask what he didn’t know or have. 

Jack was an ineffective team leader. He didn’t know how to keep his team in check. 

Susan was bad at communicating what the client actually wanted. 

The team manager, Tony was speaking to me about this the other day. He had sent out the shame on us all email. And had forgotten to mention how he had failed them as their leader.

So while he said “us”, what he really meant was “them”. 

Most crucial conversations fail right then and there. When you don’t mean what you say, but unless you say things from the heart, there really is no recourse. Of course, Tony’s intent with that email was to drive accountability. But he failed to ask what was that he could do to help with the problem areas. It became a team shaming email rather than the first step to addressing what was not working. 

With Tony’s email, the challenge was no longer why the project failed. It had become far more convoluted with the team feeling “how dare he speak to us this way”. And that is a much bigger issue. 

At work, these situations are not uncommon, negative motivation as some managers call them. When people deal with disappointments—situations where others break promises, violate expectations or behave badly—a more focused skill set is often needed to get back on track. In Crucial Accountability we build on the Crucial Conversations skill set and equip people with the ability to diagnose why problems occur, hold the right level of conversation, deal with motivation problems and respond to ability barriers. In addition, we give people skills to deal with the explosive, defensive and distracting issues that sometimes emerge when you attempt to hold others accountable.

How does one drive accountability through crucial conversations? 

1. Don’t play out the clever stories in your head: It is easy to play the victim, villain or the helpless story. It is natural to always see what the other person didn’t do. Get out of the me and them mindset. You feel that bad things are happening to you, because you have a bad team. You think they aren’t performing and that makes you look bad. The moment you switch to an “us” mindset, you start with the solutioning thinking what it is that each of you can do individually to turn around the situation. This will create a range of positive alternatives, and influence your peers/ team to hold each other accountable for using these alternatives.
2. Ask why do people tell these clever stories: Tony obviously knew that his team hadn’t been performing. He probably also knew that he wasn’t doing the best at eliciting performance from them. But what he isn’t thinking is that if nobody felt bad about what he had to say to them and to each other, what would they say? How would they communicate exactly what was holding them back from being their best. Shaming them on email would invariably backfire even if it was an act of desperation. If Tony wants to become a better leader, he needs to promote psychological safety, he needs to create an environment where people are not afraid to speak to him when something doesn’t work nor to each other.
3. Don’t fill the vacuum with meaningless words: In the course of developing crucial accountability there needs to be time given to think. Each person has to deeply consider what they can do and what they can’t – and create a plan to balance both sides. As a leader, and a crucial conversations practitioner, don’t fill that “thinking space” with meaningless actions. Be curious about what they will eventually do, don’t be curious about their intent. Assume good intentions. 
4. Mark out your space in the decision making process: As the team decides what they will do, it is important to mark yourself as the person who facilitates the decision making. You explain to them the constraints that you work with, your answerability to others in the organisation and the kind of real time challenges that you are facing. Also explain the extent to which you are flexible about what they say.

Finally clarify how you will work in the future. Mutual purpose and mutual respect will allow for dialogue going forward. Mutual purpose can be established right at the beginning of the conversation. Keep it visible so that you keep going back to it and it keeps you from going into the blame deflect reflect spiral. Mutual respect is an outcome of your leadership capability that allows your team members to bring their whole selves to the table. When they can tell you safely how they wish to be managed, what they need from you to do their work and how much they can stretch to make room for yours. 

Your ability to create accountability is one of your key strengths as a leader. 

What has worked for you? #CrucialAccountability

More from the author in this series.

About the writer:

My passion is to create opportunities and catalyse relationships that help us thrive! I believe that personal, organisational and societal change is an interactive development process and through my interventions I seek to build awareness and action across all. I have had the privilege to have trained leaders and management teams in 40 plus countries globally and on all continents.

Over the last two decades, I have engaged with leadership development, L&D and talent management across the entire spectrum from diagnosis to design to implementation. Currently I run my own leadership consulting practice which is at the intersection of Strategy, Leadership and Change.

Drop me a message at [email protected] or to schedule a call with me please use : calendly.com/shivangi/15-mins-call

Here are 2 initiatives I have founded : www.thrivewithmentoring.com, a non-profit that catalyses women to women mentoring (currently present in 5 countries) and www.xponential.cc (through which I bring award winning leadership trainings such as Crucial Conversations).

The crucial accountability product can be viewed here: https://xponential.cc/shop/ca-oct19