The Power of Transformational Accountability Partners

The first three months of the year has been magical so far personally – I have done things that were perennially on my to-do list. The “to-do” list had almost become my impossible romantic aspiration (let’s call it the “Bradley Cooper” to-do list!)  - good to admire from a distance, fantasize, idolize, but never being ready to see it in the eye! You get the idea.

It had simple things in it – to write daily, indulge in poetry, sing, make art, speak my truth – in meetings, in one-on-ones, to invest in myself, to read, to voice my quirky interpretation of events and situations and experiences. In other words, finding self -expression in hourly, daily, weekly, monthly cadence and in the moments in between. It was about shedding everything else, but what’s authentically me.

-         I was the employee of the year. I received KASS Director’s Award

-         I started singing, in Assamese

-         I wrote my first article on LinkedIn, and poured my heart into it

-         I completed a series of inspiration posts from children’s literature on LinkedIn of all places!

-         I started official meetings quoting poetry

-         I hosted a fire-side chat on “feminism” with three women leaders I deeply admired all my life

-         I conducted a session on playfulness at work as a strategy, and “playful parenting” as a leadership style

-         I volunteered to story-tell and conduct an art activity, virtually, to a group of 6 year olds on Zoom. I am telling you it does not get tougher than this!

-         I found poetry in SpaceX missions. Yes, I probed why the drone ships are named so, and was intrigued by the poet in Elon Musk

-         In other words, I became me!

But not so far ago I was wallowing in excuses. I was focused on 10,000 reasons why I could not, and justifiably so. They did not seem like excuses to me – they seemed like my reality.

Along came an accountability partner – a person who held the mirror and showed me what I was refusing to see through my cobwebbed eyes and, holding me accountable to myself. Nothing less. And sometimes nudging me to be a little more. To every “What if I fall?”, there would be a “What if you fly ?”. Actually, it was more than just accountability, it was transformational. It was about noticing the clog in the pipe and helping me “discover” the right pipe cleaner to unclog, so that there is flow. (I now realise the metaphor is quite gross. But from my experience of fixing things around in the house on my own in the last one year of working from home, there is nothing more disrupting, claustrophobic, inconvenient, unnecessary than a clogged kitchen pipe! And the “flow” is such a relief – my house can function now, the way it’s meant to be – timely meals, clean kitchen sink etc etc !)

A transformational accountability partner sees you as you are, with your possibilities and not buying into the story in your head for the sorry state. The story is subjective, and changes based on the perspective you choose – the lens that you pick, from the many that are available.

How to find a transformational accountability partner? I was lucky I found my anchor in a friend who was once a colleague, and had seen me in my authentic form, before the stories in my head amplified and blurred my intuition. I also found variations of the same in peers, boss, skip level boss, and even teammates. And I intentionally invested in coaches. ( As I write this I realise how important is work environment, organization culture in one’s journey, and how critical it is to be surrounded by the right people. We spend most of our time at “work”, so it’s important to work with the right people, in the right environment.)

The bigger question to reflect on is – am I ready to receive transformational view of me? Am I open to receive different perspectives?  Do I trust ? And its always less about the other, and more, and infact, only about self.

Quoting from the voice in my head, in other words Ayn Rand,  to end it on a good note. Quoted from “The Fountainhed”.

“ The question is not who is going to let me; its who is going to stop me”

And taking it one step further, the only person to stop me is the reflection on the mirror – me.

May you find your transformational accountability partners to become you !