Sound Wisdom Blog

Eileen Rockwell Eileen Rockwell

Accountability: The Antidote to Tough Times by Sam Silverstein

By now, it’s obvious that the global pandemic we are facing is a crisis unlike anything any of us have ever encountered. There is no longer any doubt about it: we are entering tough times. The two critical questions for leaders now are—how do we make sure our organizations survive these tough times, and how do we make sure we rebound quickly coming out of them? Those are two different things, but they are both connected to the same answer: accountability.

Photo by Breather for StockSnap 

Photo by Breather for StockSnap 

By now, it’s obvious that the global pandemic we are facing is a crisis unlike anything any of us have ever encountered. There is no longer any doubt about it: we are entering tough times. The two critical questions for leaders now are—how do we make sure our organizations survive these tough times, and how do we make sure we rebound quickly coming out of them? Those are two different things, but they are both connected to the same answer: accountability.  

In recent weeks, we have all been confronted by news stories that took us by surprise and made us feel uneasy and even fearful. Many of those stories connected to events that seemed beyond our personal control. Fortunately, accountability is not dependent on any outside factor. Neither is your organization’s capacity to survive a crisis. And neither is the velocity at which you and your organization exit troubled times. All of these things are dependent on one thing and one thing only: you. 

It is now time to focus on what really matters. The cause of the current health emergency, the cause of the economic dislocation that is accompanying it, the cause of the social changes now underway—none of these are really relevant to your organization’s ability to withstand and bounce back from a crisis, big or small. The degree to which any organization overcomes and quickly exits a crisis is actually dependent on only two things: 

  1. What you were doing as a leader before the crisis hit. This is where accountable leaders now hold a huge competitive advantage over everyone else. The kind of organization and/or team you built before there was a global pandemic will now serve as the foundation from which everything else happens in response to the crisis. If you are an accountable leader, you already established the commitments that define your workforce, the working culture, and the values you live and work by. You did that long before there was a global health emergency and long before there was a downturn in the economy. So, by definition, what happens during and after the crisis is going to build on that foundation. (By the same token, if there was an accountability gap in your organization, you as the leader are the one who must find a way to close the gap—and fast.)  

  2. Your ability to support and sustain key relationships. Maintaining and growing key relationships is always a priority, but it is even more important than usual during hard times. Relationships are based on values and commitments. It’s the critical relationships you work to support, not your bank balance, that will get your organization through tough times. It’s the values you uphold and take action on that will determine the quality of the mutual commitments in those relationships. If you have solid relationships with your team members and your suppliers, you are going to be fine. If the relationships are built on unfulfilled commitments, poor communication, and a lack of trust, then you are vulnerable, no matter what your balance sheet looks like. 

Both survival and the ability to rebound quickly from the crisis once it passes depends on the quality of your relationships. Yes, that means internal relationships with your employees, but it also means relationships with suppliers and customers. Think in terms of keeping all those ties strong. Here’s just one example of what I mean: It may well be that in tough times like these, supplies are going to be short in some critical areas. But guess what? If you have better relationships than your competitors do, you are going to have a competitive advantage…and your organization will survive the crisis better and bounce back from it more quickly.  

So for instance, if you consistently pay your suppliers on a timely basis, you will find that, if there is a shortage of something essential, they would much rather ship to you than to someone who has tried in the past to squeeze them, string them along, and use their money to finance business growth. If your competitors are operating in an exploitative way, creating bad relationships with suppliers, and you are not, you have a major advantage during (and after) tough times. Note that I am not talking about how you respond to a temporary emergency; I am talking about how you usually choose to run your business, day in and day out. Is it your regular business practice to support and strengthen the most important relationships? If it is, you will find that your suppliers and your employees are far more understanding and will do anything in their power to support you during these challenging times. 

Years ago, when I was in the window business, there was a glass shortage. We never ran out of glass. Our competitors did. The reason we never ran out of glass and others did was that the suppliers knew that if they shipped us a pallet of glass, we were going to pay them immediately, because that is what we always did. We never used our suppliers’ money to grow our own business. We never tried to take advantage of our suppliers. That was not how we operated. 

Our decision to strengthen and support our relationships with suppliers emphasized our commitment to keeping our word (because that was what we had promised we would do). It also supported our commitment to make sound financial decisions. Last but not least, it supported the value of respect toward others, because we knew we had to respect the needs of the suppliers and respect their situation and their financial needs. 

The global health emergency we are all dealing with now will pass. And when it does, the organizations that come back stronger than ever will be those whose leaders make and honor critical commitments in support of the most important relationships. That is accountable leadership—the kind of leadership that builds organizations that survive, and, yes, eventually thrive in spite of tough times. 

Sam Silverstein is dedicated to empowering people to live accountable lives, transform the way they do business, and create a more accountable world. He helps companies create an organizational culture that prioritizes and inspires accountability. His latest book, I Am Accountable: Ten Choices That Create Deeper Meaning in Your Life, Your Organization, and Your World, is now available to buy from AmazonBarnes & NobleBooks-a-Million, and Porchlight Books. You can follow Sam on TwitterFacebookInstagram, and YouTube. This article originally appeared here on The Accountability Blog

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Eileen Rockwell Eileen Rockwell

Accountability Means “It’s All of Us” in the Larger World by Sam Silverstein

The commitment I call “It’s all of us” has a certain distinctive “look and feel” whenever a true leader lives it and leads with it. There are lots of different words leaders can use in demonstrating their accountability to this commitment, and there are lots of different actions they can take, but every time this idea is put into practice as a leadership principle, it inspires people by sending a simple, powerful message via word and deed: “I don’t succeed unless you succeed…and I am totally committed to making sure that we all succeed together.”

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The commitment I call “It’s all of us” has a certain distinctive “look and feel” whenever a true leader lives it and leads with it. There are lots of different words leaders can use in demonstrating their accountability to this commitment, and there are lots of different actions they can take, but every time this idea is put into practice as a leadership principle, it inspires people by sending a simple, powerful message via word and deed: “I don’t succeed unless you succeed…and I am totally committed to making sure that we all succeed together.”  

I have seen this commitment play out in both the private and the public sector countless times, as leaders energized people by committing personally to this promise of success…and then took action on that commitment day after day after day. The kind of commitment I am talking about transforms entire organizations. It creates a workforce that is not only supremely loyal, but so committed to delivering quality outcomes that the organization becomes hypercompetitive in virtually any economic climate. Talk about a competitive advantage! Yet this is still not the most compelling expression of this “It’s all of us” commitment, at least not in my experience. The highest expression of this commitment comes when someone delivers this promise beyond the realm of a single organization, in an effort to build accountability to “It’s all of us” in the larger world.  

That is exactly what happened recently at Morehouse College in Atlanta, a historically significant educational institution founded in 1867 and dedicated to developing “men with disciplined minds who will lead lives of leadership and service.” One of the few remaining black liberal arts colleges for men, Morehouse is a remarkable institution. Regardless of whether you have heard of Morehouse before or not, I can guarantee that you have been touched by its work, for the simple reason that the institution includes such figures as Rep. Sanford Bishop, Spike Lee, Samuel L. Jackson, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. among its many notable alumni. 

Billionaire investor Robert F. Smith, one of the wealthiest men in America, also happens to be on that list of notable alumni. Smith electrified the graduating class of 2019 when he announced unexpectedly, during the graduation ceremonies, that he was setting up a grant program that would eliminate any and all outstanding student loan debt for the 396 young men graduating from Morehouse that day. His announcement pretty much broke the Internet; it also received major coverage via dozens of mainstream news outlets. 

Most of the attention has focused on Smith’s personal generosity, and that’s certainly a valid and important element of the story. What has received less coverage is his challenge to the young men of the class of 2019. Smith didn’t simply write each man a check. He told each of the men in that graduating class that he expected something in return for erasing any student loans taken out to pay for a Morehouse education. 

After making his extraordinary commitment and receiving a standing ovation from the graduates and their families, Smith made it abundantly clear what he expected in return. He referred to the 2019 graduating class as “my class,” and then said, “I know my class will make sure they pay this forward…let’s make sure that every class has the same opportunity going forward because we care enough to take care of our own community. We are enough to ensure we have all the opportunities of the American Dream.” 

If you were wondering what “It’s all of us” looks and sounds like when it’s a commitment that one leader makes, and keeps, not to a single organization but to the world at large, now you know. 

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Sam Silverstein is dedicated to empowering people to live accountable lives, transform the way they do business, and create a more accountable world. He helps companies create an organizational culture that prioritizes and inspires accountability. His latest book, I Am Accountable: Ten Choices That Create Deeper Meaning in Your Life, Your Organization, and Your World, is now available to buy from AmazonBarnes & NobleBooks-a-Million, and Porchlight Books. You can follow Sam on TwitterFacebookInstagram, and YouTube

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Eileen Rockwell Eileen Rockwell

Accountability Is Not Just for the Workplace by Sam Silverstein

I spend a lot of time talking to teams and leaders about what accountability looks like on the organizational level—in the workplace. But it’s just as important to take a close look at accountability in our relationships with people outside of the workplace. In fact, I believe true accountability always starts at the level of the individual, not the level of the organization.

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I spend a lot of time talking to teams and leaders about what accountability looks like on the organizational level—in the workplace. But it’s just as important to take a close look at accountability in our relationships with people outside of the workplace. In fact, I believe true accountability always starts at the level of the individual, not the level of the organization. 

Let me share an example of what accountability on the individual level looks like in action. I have a dear friend name Mike Domirtz. Mike doesn’t live in St. Louis, so I don’t see him a lot face to face. But I’ve known him for years, I keep in touch with him regularly, and he is a powerful, enduring, and positive presence in my life. 

Mike called me at the end of December last year and said, “Sam, I keep meaning to ask you, what’s your word for 2019? What one word are you going to keep coming back to, day after day, no matter what happens?” He often reaches out like that. 

As it happened, the word I had chosen for 2019, as my daily compass point, was gratitude. Mike and I started talking about gratitude: how important it is, the remarkable power it has to transform one’s perspective and one’s world, and why it made so much sense for me as a returning point of focus for the coming year.  

Throughout this conversation, Mike was supportive, thoughtful, and insightful, asking all the right questions and making lots of relevant observations. The call went on for about half an hour. When we got off the line, I couldn’t stop thinking about what an important person Mike was in my life. I realized I wanted more of those kinds of conversations—and that I wanted to be there for Mike in the same way he had just been there for me. 

That’s when I got to thinking about some other changes I wanted to make in 2019, based on the power of Mike’s personal example. For instance, I knew that I wanted to make a habit of prayer and journaling time in the early morning, and I knew that this kind of morning practice was already part of Mike’s routine. The more I thought about it, the clearer it became that there was an idea I needed to suggest to Mike. 

A couple of days later, I called Mike. I told him I wanted to start following his example of setting aside early-morning time for reflection and journaling. Then I suggested a mutual commitment that I thought would get 2019 off to a great start for each of us. What if we were to begin the day with some time to ourselves and some journaling…and then communicate with the other on a daily basis about how our morning time was going? What if we did a check-in call every morning for the following twenty-one days, so we could review what was working in our morning routine? What wasn’t? What were we noticing? What had we learned? What had we decided to change in our lives as a result of our prayer and journaling time? 

Mike instantly agreed. And the insights we have both gained from that process have been phenomenal. 

In the popular vernacular, Mike is—and has been for about a decade—my “accountability partner.” And I am his. But I think we take that relationship a little deeper than it usually goes. I’ve had a lot of accountability partners over the years. But in my experience, there is no one quite like Mike. There is a certain special synergy in our relationship. It’s not really me “holding Mike accountable” or Mike “holding me accountable.” We inspire each other to follow through on our commitments to ourselves to grow, develop, and learn. That’s how strong the relationship we’ve built is: It actually makes us want to be more accountable to our own best selves. That’s where the magic happens! 

Mike’s commitment to be accountable to me, to support my becoming the best possible version of myself, makes me want to return the favor—and it also makes me want to live up to the high standard he has set for me. That kind of inspiration is what makes great things possible, not just in the workplace, but everywhere else in life. 

I hope you have someone like Mike in your life—but more importantly, I hope you choose to be someone like Mike, in a relationship outside of the workplace. Do what Mike did: Reach out! Be accountable! Make a commitment to support someone’s becoming the best possible version of themselves! Inspire someone! 

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Sam Silverstein is dedicated to empowering people to live accountable lives, transform the way they do business, and create a more accountable world. He helps companies create an organizational culture that prioritizes and inspires accountability. His latest book, I Am Accountable: Ten Choices That Create Deeper Meaning in Your Life, Your Organization, and Your World, is available tomorrow from AmazonBarnes & NobleBooks-a-Million, and Porchlight Books. You can follow Sam on TwitterFacebookInstagram, and YouTube

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Eileen Rockwell Eileen Rockwell

Are You Accountable to Your Customers? by Sam Silverstein

If a company is more concerned with its immediate bottom line than it is with the customer’s best interests, that is a short-term decision, and a poor one. That company is maximizing a short-term profit in exchange for a long-term loss. When that company stops looking out for its customers, it might maximize its profits that month, that quarter, or maybe even that year—but there are going to be long-term problems down the line…and if the company ignores those problems for long enough, its survival will eventually be at stake! 

Accountable leadership cares less about the short-term bottom line…and more about the long-term relationship. 

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 A key test of accountability comes in the form of two tough questions:  

  • Can your customers count on you to act in their best interests? Do they know you’ve always “got their back”?  

  • Do they know you are accountable to fulfill a commitment to provide them with full value…and to give them all the information they need to make an informed decision?  

A recent PBS NewsHour story is making customers think twice about whether their most trusted providers are offering the right answers to those questions.  

Gretchen Liu, 78, went online and paid her insurance provider’s chosen supplier a copay of $285 for a 90-day supply of some medication she needed. The price seemed high, but her condition was serious, so she simply paid the bill and trusted that her insurance company was pointing her toward the best available price. Time passed, and Liu needed a refill of her medication before going on a trip. She headed to the pharmacy at Costco…where she learned that she could have gotten the very same medication there for only $40 if she had opted to pay for the same (generic!) drug out of pocket, instead of using the online copay arrangement provided by her insurance company! 

Let’s be frank. Something went very wrong here, something that needs to be noticed not just by online pharmacies and insurance companies, but by companies operating in all industries. When we don’t tell our customers how to make the very best choice, we let them down…and we don’t fulfill our accountability to them to look after their interests and deliver full value. 

There are two places where accountability needs to show up in this kind of situation. First, the online vendor for these medications should prominently inform customers when they can get a substantial price break by not using the copay option. The online pharmaceutical vendor, and by extension the insurance company, failed this test. 

Second, the pharmacists we visit in person should also make sure we get the best price possible. The Costco pharmacist passed this test. Guess which supplier Liu trusts more? Guess which she is more likely to recommend? 

One relationship with the customer—Costco’s—was based on accountability. The other wasn’t. Can you blame Liu—or any of us who need prescription drugs—if we start assuming that we need to watch out for our own interests, rather than trust our insurance company’s chosen suppliers? 

News flash: If you’re my insurance company, I’m your customer! That means you should be looking out for my best interests. 

That’s true for any company, of course, not just companies that sell insurance.  

If a company is more concerned with its immediate bottom line than it is with the customer’s best interests, that is a short-term decision, and a poor one. That company is maximizing a short-term profit in exchange for a long-term loss. When that company stops looking out for its customers, it might maximize its profits that month, that quarter, or maybe even that year—but there are going to be long-term problems down the line…and if the company ignores those problems for long enough, its survival will eventually be at stake! 

So: How committed is your organization to always do what’s best for the customer? How likely are you to tell a customer, “You know what? You can save some money and/or time if you do it this way instead of that way”? How committed are you and your team to giving customers all the information they should be able to expect from you? 

If you hesitated before answering any of those questions, consider that the problem you just uncovered begins with your company leadership’s commitment to employees.  

When leadership is only focused on the short-term bottom line and is not looking out for the best interests of customers, that sends a message to the employees in the organization that leaders probably aren’t looking out for their best interests, either! All too often, that message is part of a corporate death spiral—poor employee morale reinforces poor customer service, which reinforces poor employee morale, and on and on. This cycle is a hallmark of unaccountable leaders—not bad employees! Wherever there is a customer service issue, that points toward an accountability issue internally in the organization…usually at the very top.  

The flip side is also true. If the people in the organization know that the leader has their back and is personally accountable to uphold a commitment to help them achieve their full potential and be the very best they can be, then that leader is building a culture based on accountability and commitment—and those employees are going to be accountable to fulfilling a commitment to the customers to deliver full value, time after time after time. 

Rest assured: If you care about the long-term relationship more than the short-term bottom line, you will build a marketplace advantage based on accountability…and you will turn your customers into passionate advocates for your brand. 

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Sam Silverstein is dedicated to empowering people to live accountable lives, transform the way they do business, and create a more accountable world. He helps companies create an organizational culture that prioritizes and inspires accountability. His most recent book in the No More Excuses series, No Matter What: The 10 Commitments of Accountability, is available now from AmazonBarnes & NobleBooks-a-Million800-CEO-READ, and other fine retailers. You can follow Sam on Twitter @SamSilverstein, Facebook @SilversteinSam, Instagram @samsilverstein, and YouTube @samsilverstein. 

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Eileen Rockwell Eileen Rockwell

Accountability Creates Sanctuary by Sam Silverstein

I run into a lot of leaders who mislead themselves—without realizing that’s what’s happening. Here’s how they do it. They say things like “My people aren’t creative—we need to get a creativity expert in here to talk to them.” Or: “My people aren’t great problem-solvers—they need to get better at problem-solving. Go find me a program that will help them improve their problem-solving.”

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I run into a lot of leaders who mislead themselves—without realizing that’s what’s happening. Here’s how they do it. They say things like “My people aren’t creative—we need to get a creativity expert in here to talk to them.” Or: “My people aren’t great problem-solvers—they need to get better at problem-solving. Go find me a program that will help them improve their problem-solving.” 

Here’s the disconnect. Nine times out of ten, the problem is not with the team. The problem is with the leader!  

Specifically, the problem is a leader who focuses on responsibility before focusing on accountability. Let me explain what I mean by that. We have responsibility to things like assignments and job descriptions. But we have accountability to people…and one of the critical leadership accountabilities is being a SANCTUARY for others. For many leaders, this is a brand new concept, so let me break it down.  

Responsible vs. Accountable 

As the leader, I may hire you to be creative and to solve problems…and as a result, you have those responsibilities. But even if you do, I am accountable to you to create a safe place within the organization where you can operate and successfully produce the results that we both want. If I don’t do that, the fault lies with me…not with you. 

Why is the team failing to create good ideas? Maybe it’s because they don’t yet have a safe place to share good ideas. Maybe they believe (with good cause) that if they suggest an idea, and it’s perceived as being off the mark, they will pay a price. Maybe they aren’t yet sure they won’t be ridiculed, or even worse, for coming up with a bad idea. And if I’m the leader…that’s my issue. That’s the culture I’ve created. That’s a failure of leadership. 

Why is the team struggling with problem-solving? Maybe it’s because they don’t have a safe place to try and fail to solve a problem. Maybe they’ve come to believe (again, with cause) that it’s safer to accept the status quo and find an expensive or time-consuming way to live with the problem than it is to risk trying something new. Maybe they’ve seen too many people being penalized for actually trying something new. And if I’m the leader …again, that’s first and foremost a problem with my leadership. 

If you are a leader, you are accountable to the people you lead for creating a safe space in the relationship. 

The Highest Form of Leadership 

I call this safe place SANCTUARY—a word I realize most leaders aren’t familiar with or even comfortable with in a business context.   

Creating a SANCTUARY space in our relationships means doing way more than saying “Welcome aboard—let me know if you have any problems.” In a SANCTUARY relationship, leaders make four specific commitments to people. 

  • CARE. I demonstrate that I genuinely care about your growth as a person—by my actions, not just my words. I support you to the best of my ability in your personal aspirations. I care for and value you as a human being, not as a means to an end. Not only that—I value all people in the organization, without making distinctions based on superficial things like how they look or dress. You count on me not to get distracted by the differences but to focus on you as an individual. 

  • VULNERABILITY. I make it clear that you have strengths and capacities that I don’t. I don’t pretend to have all the answers or be able to do everything myself. If you didn’t have strengths and capacities that I was lacking, why would I hire you?  When I acknowledge to you that I have weaknesses or need improvement in certain areas, I make it easier for us to collaborate and communicate as equals. 

  • TRUST. I trust you to make certain decisions, and I don’t second-guess you. Assuming you operate within the boundaries we both agree to—our values—I never penalize you for making a decision that I wouldn’t have made. If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t have hired you in the first place. I assume you are trustworthy until you prove otherwise. 

  • RESPECT. I don’t belittle you, in public or in private. I don’t talk bad about you behind your back. As a matter of fact, I look at you with reverence and esteem, and I see real worth in you as a human being, a person just like me. 

Those four commitments—Care, Vulnerability, Trust, and Respect—add up to the safe space I call SANCTUARY.  

Remember: It’s not up to your employees to make you feel safe. You need to make them feel safe first! 

Consider yourself accountable to create a true SANCTUARY relationship with each and every person in your organization. This will have a profound positive effect on your culture—and your results. If you ignore or sabotage SANCTUARY, you will eventually find the results challenging!  

If that ever happens, don’t mislead yourself about what’s happening. Start by fixing the real problem. Maintain full accountability to the people you lead for the quality of the workplace relationship…and become a SANCTUARY for your team! This is the highest form of leadership.

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Sam Silverstein is dedicated to empowering people to live accountable lives, transform the way they do business, and create a more accountable world. He helps companies create an organizational culture that prioritizes and inspires accountability. His most recent book in the No More Excuses series, No Matter What: The 10 Commitments of Accountability, is available now from AmazonBarnes & NobleBooks-a-Million800-CEO-READ, and other fine retailers.

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Eileen Rockwell Eileen Rockwell

Accountability Is Impossible Without the Truth by Sam Silverstein

For a leader, there is no such thing as “kind of” telling the truth. 

If you are a leader, you are either fulfilling your personal commitment to tell someone who is counting on you the truth or you aren’t fulfilling that commitment. If you aren’t, then accountability within the relationship and the organization you lead is impossible, because you’ve already failed to be accountable to your team coming out of the gate. 

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For a leader, there is no such thing as “kind of” telling the truth.  

If you are a leader, you are either fulfilling your personal commitment to tell someone who is counting on you the truth or you aren’t fulfilling that commitment. If you aren’t, then accountability within the relationship and the organization you lead is impossible, because you’ve already failed to be accountable to your team coming out of the gate.  

That’s the high standard that leaders of teams and organizations must meet: they’re either telling the truth or they aren’t. It’s kind of like the old joke about having a baby: you’re either pregnant or you’re not. There’s no such thing as being “a little” pregnant. It’s an absolute state. And so is being a leader who expects—and shares—the truth. 

You can depend on a culture where truth is consistently present. You cannot depend on a person who passes along, or accepts, less than the truth. Accountability and lying can never exist in the same space. 

People who seek truth want only truth and do not want anything else around them. They don’t want “BS.” They are not afraid of being told the truth. They love the truth, even when it hurts, and they don’t want to associate with anything that is not the truth or with people who accept less than the truth. 

What happens to people who don’t want to hear the truth? What happens when they would rather have their egos stroked than deal with the reality of their situation? What happens to their organization? I’ll tell you. The viewpoint of the entire organization becomes distorted. The viewpoint of the company’s people becomes distorted. The viewpoint of what their people can accomplish becomes distorted. There is a false picture of where they are, both individually and organizationally. This false picture leads to bad decisions, and those bad decisions lead to an ever-growing wave of less-than-favorable outcomes. It’s a downward cycle. 

When people consistently don’t want to hear the truth, they lead themselves and the people around them in the wrong direction. This is the ultimate recipe for failure. 

The truth produces something. It produces a freedom. We have all heard the expression, “The truth will set you free.” This concept originates in the New Testament—it’s in the Gospel of John, chapter 8, verse 32. But what does it mean, this idea that the truth will set you free? Free from what? What kind of freedom is it, and what will that freedom allow you to do? What happens if you do not have that freedom? 

The reality is that truth frees you by allowing you to be you. When the standard by which you live your life is the truth that guides you, when you make your decisions based on this standard, you move closer to the person you are supposed to be. And you become more consistent in both your actions and your results. When you build your life around truth, you are free to move forward because you know how to make decisions, you know what your decisions are based on, and you know that the decisions you make, when they are based on the standard of truth, will always be the best decision you could have made.  

That is true freedom, for leaders and for everyone else.

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Sam Silverstein is dedicated to empowering people to live accountable lives, transform the way they do business, and create a more accountable world. He helps companies create an organizational culture that prioritizes and inspires accountability. His most recent book in the No More Excuses series, No Matter What: The 10 Commitments of Accountability, is available now from AmazonBarnes & NobleBooks-a-Million800-CEO-READ, and other fine retailers.

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Eileen Rockwell Eileen Rockwell

Two Questions That Support an Accountable Workplace Culture by Sam Silverstein

If you want to attract and hold on to the best people, redefine accountability in your organization.

I work with a lot of senior leaders of organizations. One of the major challenges these leaders frequently share with me is their difficulty in hiring and holding on to good people. They want talented people, and they don’t want those talented people going to the competition once they have been hired and trained! So they’ll ask me, “Sam, what’s the best way for me to win and hold on to the talented people that will keep our organization competitive?”

If you want to attract and hold on to the best people, redefine accountability in your organization.

I work with a lot of senior leaders of organizations. One of the major challenges these leaders frequently share with me is their difficulty in hiring and holding on to good people. They want talented people, and they don’t want those talented people going to the competition once they have been hired and trained! So they’ll ask me, “Sam, what’s the best way for me to win and hold on to the talented people that will keep our organization competitive?”

Often, before I can even begin to answer that question, the phone will ring, and I’ll hear that same senior leader say something like this: “Jim, you do realize that you’re accountable for delivering X, Y, and Z by such and such a date?” The leader’s tone on this conversation is likely to be brisk and aggressive, the conversation is typically brief and one-sided, and the implication is always clear: if the person on the other end of the line doesn’t deliver exactly what’s expected, on time and under budget, there’s going to be trouble! These very same leaders are the ones most likely to tell me that they pride themselves on their organization’s “accountable workplace culture”—as though them saying, “I am holding you accountable” was what created such a culture!

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the whole concept of accountability—a misunderstanding that undermines any and every attempt to recruit and retain a productive team. It never even occurs to these leaders that the quality of the conversations they’re having with their own people is adversely affecting their ability to attract and hold on to the best people!

As leaders, we have to change the way we think about accountability.

Change the Conversation

If we’re leading a team, we need to start that change in thinking by defining accountability for ourselves. Let’s define accountability as “keeping our commitments to people…starting with me keeping my commitments to you.” 

Translation: Having an “accountable culture” doesn’t mean you hold everyone else hostage to your authority!

To the contrary, it means modelling accountability from the top down. It means you go out of your way to make commitments that support your team as they move toward fulfilling their goals—and it means you keep those commitments. It means accepting that an “accountable workplace culture” always starts with the commitments that you make to the team…not the other way around!

It is perhaps a little too easy for leaders to look past that word “commitment.” It is too easy to think, “Oh yeah, I know what a commitment is. Everyone knows what a commitment is. A commitment is when you say ‘yes,’ or ‘I will,’ or maybe even ‘I do.’”

“No Matter What”

A commitment is something you follow through on…no matter what. Just because you hit tough times does not mean you need to move on or that it is time to quit. Just because something is hard does not mean you should do something else. Where’s the commitment in that? A commitment is a pledge. It is a promise. It is not a maybe, or a hopefully, or a probably. It is an absolute. It is a relationship built on a foundation I call “No Matter What.” That foundation takes the form of two powerful questions:

  • What personal commitment do I demonstrate to my people, in both words and deeds, in every single interaction? 

  • How do my people know with certainty that I am committed to them and that I will be delivering on my commitments to them? 

Notice how a conversation about, say, an important project’s current status changes when you make a habit of asking yourself two questions. Instead of saying, “I hope you realize you’re accountable for delivering X, Y, and Z by such-and-such a date,” you’re more likely to say, “Jim, I’m committed to helping you always shine, reach your full potential, and move forward in the organization. With that in mind, what do you need from me in order to complete this assignment at a high level of quality by August 1?”

Guess what? That’s what a conversation in an accountable workplace culture sounds like! And following through on what you then commit to is what it looks like!

Holding someone else accountable, without clarifying your commitment to them, is like holding a gun to the person’s head. Who wants to work in that environment? If you stop to think about it, you’ll realize that the only reason someone stays in an environment like that is the paycheck they receive. Is that where you are right now with your team?

If so, you should know that that’s an extremely dangerous place to be if you’re a leader whose priority is attracting and retaining top talent. The moment someone offers that person a nickel more in salary, or offers to pay the same salary but work closer to home, you’re at risk of losing that talent you’ve worked so hard to find and develop!

When you hold someone accountable, it is all about them doing something for you. By contrast, when you are accountable to the people you lead, the conversation is transformed. It becomes about your working for their success. When you create an authentic relationship that’s based on you keeping your commitments to your people, based on you being accountable to them, they will naturally want to perform at a high level…and they will never want to go work for anybody else! 

So: If you want to attract and hold on to the best people, change your discussions with them. Ask those two questions. Change the way you think about accountability. Understand that accountability only begins when leaders choose to demonstrate it, on a personal level, to their own people!

Sam Silverstein is dedicated to empowering people to live accountable lives, transform the way they do business, and create a more accountable world. He helps companies create an organizational culture that prioritizes and inspires accountability. His most recent book in the No More Excuses series, No Matter What: The 10 Commitments of Accountability, is available now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, 800-CEO-READ, and other fine retailers.

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