ARE YOU ACCOUNTABLE?

15 LESSONS THAT I LEARNT FROM MY PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL CAREER THAT HELPED ME BUILD MY BUSINESS. LESSON : 6

This week’s topic is quite interesting. If you are someone that’s interested in knowing why some people constantly achieve their desired  results while others struggle to complete even the simplest task. Here's my take on why this is so.

Let’s start by asking, how much of your success boils down to you? Or is your success dependent on others?  Think about all the choices, options and steps you have taken in your life that impacted the outcome of your current situation?

If you find yourself pointing the finger at someone else and blaming bad luck for your current position, then it’s almost certain that you are doomed to fail.

I have been in situations where it was always easier to blame others than look in the mirror and reflect. But you might start wondering where I’m going with this, I want to take this opportunity to share one of the most important aspects I’ve learnt in both football and business, how to be accountable for your mindset and subsequently the action you need to take to ensure you reach your goals.

Let me break it down into simple bite-sized information that will help you understand this well.

1.     Are you responsible?

Responsibility is something you have to recognize and take on fast. When you are truly responsible, and are aware that good or bad, failure or success is entirely up to you regardless whether decisions were made as a collective or an individual. This way, you are committed to the outcome even before you start taking action.

One simple step on how to practice this

Take responsibility - either way, good or bad. It’s easy to claim responsibility when things are going well but not when it goes bad.

Football fans will relate to this, when a goal is conceded everyone just starts looking around to blame someone but at the same time when the team scores a goal the player who passed the ball before the assist, the player who made the assist and the goal scorer all claim the victory.

I’ve seen it way too many times in my career. Don’t get me wrong; I’m equally as guilty! A sign of a top team is when they don’t dwell on the goal and they get on with things.

Acknowledging that you have the power

You have the power to take responsibility, everyone has this power, but very few actually realize they have the ability or admit that they do  to manage their lives and careers. Of course you can easily give away that choice, but remember that it is a conscious choice, only you can make that happen.

Dealing with it!

When was it ever possible to alter or change the past? Yet, we dwell and get stuck in the past and can’t find a way forward. A simple example in football is that players always argue with the referees about a decision. Has the decision ever been changed? It won’t and it never will.

Bringing the same example into business, think about the times you made a wrong hire, went into a wrong deal, bad partnerships, etc. In the past I would spend days worrying and feeling upset. These days I tend to ask, “how  do I want to react to this situation?” Leaders must lead, not become a victim of the situation.

Recently, we entered into a project with all the good intentions of making a difference for a sport in a country, so much so that we invested time and resources into the project that gave us zero returns. We even got blamed for most of the challenges the project faced.

It is natural to feel upset, disappointed and bitter about the whole situation, which I did for a couple of weeks! But I quickly realized that I must be accountable and take responsibility for the decision I made to be involved. No one forced us to take on the project, so I had to come to terms to with it.

2.     Empower yourself

There’s nothing like empowering yourself. This only comes from within. Empowering yourself allows you to take action and the risk associated with it to get to your desired results. Instead of waiting for someone else to empower you or give you that break, step out of your comfort zone, push for things to happen and accept the outcomes. Back in the 2002, I decided to try my luck in Europe and packed my bags to attend trials in France, I had no security of a contract to fall back to in the Singapore League.

Like the script for a good movie, I didn’t land a contract and I had to come back to the stark reality.  I had to accept a part time contract which was the worst deal I had signed in my career in terms of monetary value, but that was also the year I had the best season of my life. On hindsight, I was glad that I went to France and got out of my comfort zone.

Now how can you take these practical steps?

Managing your expectations

Make sure that you are clear about your goals. Write them down. What you want from your actions and what you need to do to achieve the results. For a while, my business development team felt stuck and was not able to move forward.

We did a quick exercise on what we want to achieve and what we need to do to achieve our goals. We reverse engineered that route and steps to get what we wanted. Worked out the leads we needed to make the close. Now everyone is clear and I even have the steps written down for reference.

Time Management

Meetings, coffees, gossips. Needless  to say, its energy and time sapping. Learning to say “No” is a great skill. These days I’m mindful about who I say “Yes” to. Ask yourself if every meeting, coffee session is getting you closer to your  goals. Don’t get this mistaken for personal relationships. This example is only for business relationships.

I’m very focused these days on making meaningful connections. Connections where I can add value to the person I'm meeting and be of service in the process. Think about your daily life and how can you optimize your working hours?

Let the world know about your achievements

There was a lot of online chatter about Cristiano Ronaldo saying that he’s the best player in the World and better than Lionel Messi after he won the coveted Balon D’or for the 5th time.

He’s obviously an extremely confident man and winning it five times is no easy feat, so he has earned the right to sing his own praises.

In a workplace it’s all too common to say, “One day, they will know how good I am.” My take is, why not tell people what you have done and especially if you are employed, tell your bosses your effort and the outcome? If your boss is a true leader he will appreciate it. Entrepreneurs love staff members that take ownership of their job and the company.

3.      Can you take personal accountability?

Taking responsibility is “the before”, Empowering yourself is “the during” and personal accountability is “the after.” It’s the process of standing up for your actions, choices and behaviour. Only when you are personally accountable, you can stop the finger pointing and making excuses. Instead, you take full responsibility in case things go wrong.

Again, how can we practice this?

Being Honest

I was involved in an education business some time ago and due to poor management practices, the business folded. While I had no direct involvement in the company except as an investor, it was my duty to tell our clients the full story of our demise.

The matter became public and I held a town hall meeting on my own even though there were two other shareholders and explained the situation to our clients. While not all of them took it in their stride (I sincerely didn’t expect them to), some of them appreciated the honesty on my part.

I have even had my competition and haters use this particular business failure against me. I remember once reading an article where the Crown Prince of Johor said that his haters love to see the little speck of black on an otherwise white sheet of paper. I guess that's just human nature. But that stuck with me. No matter what you do, people are going to pick on you.

Till this day it makes me upset at the way things turned out. However, I can take solace about the fact that I was honest and upfront with the people who did business with us.

Being your own police

Most entrepreneurs are not accountable to anyone. That’s the reason why they get into business. Similarly, for the longest time I had no one to be accountable to. I did what I liked and often, that had an impact on my bottom line.

Only when I started becoming aware that I have to be personally accountable for my actions and choices,  I worked on being my own “accountability police.” Since then I’ve seen significant improvements in the overall performance of my business.

The man in the mirror

Like Michael Jackson’s famous song, “It starts with the man in mirror”. When something goes wrong, do you ask yourself how did you contribute to the situation? I must admit, it’s hard to self reflect like that when life throws a rock at you. This is something I come to terms with everyday.

In Conclusion

Accountability is something that is solely missing in the workforce and society today. But football taught me valuable lessons about being accountable. Without it, I don’t think I would have scaled the heights that I did in business. Though there are still many aspects of that I need to improve, being aware of the fact has given me a good advantage in business.