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ACCOUNTABILITY AS OWNERSHIP

What if there was one basic human trait that was the foundation of virtually everything that we achieve in life? One characteristic that creates our results, fosters our learning and growth, keeps us sharp and adaptable, builds healthy relationships, improves our mental and physical health, and positively influences nearly everyone that we associate with?

And what if this one thing, this ground-spring of lasting success in life, was also perhaps the most widely misunderstood concept in our culture today? What if the way that most of us think about and apply this fundamental success concept causes many to live a life of mediocrity, disappointment, and frustration rather than the life we are truly capable of? What if the way that most of us engage this concept actually creates the exact opposite of what we desire in life?

If you're like me, you're an avid reader. I learned early on that "leaders are readers," and one particular area of interest for me has always been the strategies, habits, and behaviors of successful people. While I've lost count of all the books that I've read in this genre, some classics like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, as well as more recent works such as Atomic Habits by James Clear, stand out to me. In the end, many of these books have positively impacted my success in business, and in life.

Most of the books I've read on this topic identify a set of foundational characteristics and habits that contribute to high achievement. Interestingly, though, many of these works contain different success attributes! While this seemed confusing to me at first, I'm now fine with the variation. The diversity of ideas tells me that there is more than one formula for success in life. That, in and of itself, is encouraging. Over my career, I've applied much of what I learned from these books, and I have benefited greatly.

However, as I have applied the concepts from these books, and developed a few of my own, there is one characteristic that I've found has had by far the greatest impact on my success and my happiness. This one characteristic is common in almost all of the successful people that I've met or studied. It is the one characteristic that is the bedrock of success and achievement. In fact, without it, none of the ideas in all of the books that I've read on self-improvement can deliver on their potential. Yet, this characteristic is also the most frequently misunderstood concept in business and in society today. And this misunderstanding creates the very opposite of what we intend.

I am talking about personal accountability, and flipping the way we understand and apply this principle is the mission of this book.

Our experience, working with over one hundred Fortune 1000 companies and tens of thousands of individuals, is that there is a fundamental misperception of what accountability truly is.

Intuitively, most sense that accountability is a good thing, something that leads to better performance and increased results, yet we most often experience accountability as something that is far less than empowering - and in fact is often disempowering. Too often, accountability is synonymous with consequences - in particular, negative consequences. Virtually everywhere you hear accountability mentioned in society, it is typically affiliated with bad behavior, poor performance, and negative consequences. It is a wonder that anyone would want anything to do with it.

Let me give you an example. Let's say a professional athlete does something egregious. What typically happens is that someone in authority - usually the coach or the commissioner - calls a press conference or releases a statement where they assert that they intend to "hold this person accountable" for the offensive actions. Then they fine, suspend, or fire the athlete. In other words, they create some form of negative consequence.

And this approach to accountability is not just reserved for the famous. We all have experienced something like this at various times in our lives. Most often, when accountability is mentioned or practiced it is really just the application of negative consequences.

The costs of this misunderstanding are significant. If we experience accountability as negative consequences and punishment, then it only makes sense that, on an individual level, we would be smart to avoid it. Yet when we shun accountability, there are significant downsides; we often repeat mistakes, miss opportunities, fail to learn and adapt, and generally underperform relative to our potential. At the organizational level, when leaders use negative consequences to shape behavior, they create unintended collateral damage, and ultimately limit individual and group performance. Leaders with this misguided view of accountability create a culture of unmet milestones, missed opportunities, and poor results. The prices of this mindset include lost productivity, lower quality, customer dissatisfaction, low morale, high turnover, lower sales, and diminished profits.

Few words in the English language carry the emotional impact that accountability does. Simply mentioning the word can create powerful physiological and emotional responses in the hearer. Accountability has undeniable power to create results, and yet for many people, when it's promoted by someone with authority, the word often elicits anxiety and engenders avoidance behaviors. There is a reason for this accountability anxiety, and it starts with the widely promulgated meaning of accountability.

The early 2020 version of Merriam-Webster's online dictionary defines accountability as (emphasis and underlines are mine):

ACCOUNTABLE

1. Subject to giving an account: ANSWERABLE. held her accountable for the damage
2. Capable of being explained: EXPLAINABLE. leaving aside variations accountable as printer errors. - Peter Shaw

Examples of accountable in a sentence:

If anything goes wrong, I will hold you personally accountable!

The owner was held accountable for his dog's biting of the child.

Did you notice the hidden assumption evident in each example and definition?

Each one was negative: damage, errors, goes wrong, dog's biting! Further, three of the four examples included the application of negative consequences to a performer from some unnamed external power or authority. In those examples, one person with authority blames and punishes another person who lacks authority. The authority is active, the person being punished is passive. Accountability as defined above is profoundly asymmetrical.

There were no mentions of the benefits of accountability. No description of personal growth. Nothing about accountability's life-changing power. If you believe the dictionary definitions, you would think that people wanting to take more accountability must first become masochistic. Success, according to Webster's, requires punishment!

This traditional view of accountability as punishment creates a power dynamic where authorities seek to assign blame and performers seek to shift it. Accountability in this traditional view is something to be avoided when possible. Further, a person with authority places blame based on the implicit assumption that the performer intended to make a mistake or to fall short. What a mess! It's no wonder so many people avoid this view of accountability.

Creating consequences for people when they don't do what you want them to do is not accountability, it's consequence management. Yes, consequences shape behavior but you will never get discretionary effort with negative consequences. You simply get just enough to stop the consequences, and it comes with collateral damage, from passive resistance to outright sabotage. Ultimately, we choose our consequences in life by the choices we make every day.

There is another definition of accountability, one that isn't in the dictionary. It is a definition that many people naturally understand and gravitate toward. In this intuitive understanding, personal accountability isn't about negative consequences for poor performance, it's about taking personal ownership of one's state in life. This view of accountability is the foundation of this book.

We either walk our own personal path toward greater accountability, or we don't. No one else can hold us accountable, only we can hold ourselves accountable. In fact, looking for someone else to hold you accountable may be the most unaccountable thing that you can do.

True accountability is based on the realization that we all have free-will choice. By the way, if you think that free will is an illusion and that it does not exist, you are free to hold that belief! For the rest of us who think that we actually do have choices in life, this realization is earth-shattering. If we believe that we "have to" do things, those things naturally become a burden. When we "have to" do something, we feel trapped, coerced into doing things that others want us to do. Life lived with a have-to mindset can begin to feel like a prison.

As soon as we realize that everything is a choice, the prison walls disappear. When we choose to do something rather than have to, we have a greater sense of personal control and freedom. Obviously, consequences come with every...