Tag Archives: personal accountability

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Say what you do and do what you say

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We perceive other levels of honesty and moral uprightness based on their actions (words and deeds).  People who do not follow through can lose respect and trust very quickly.

That is not to say you must accomplish every objective and goal you expound on in order for others to view you as having a high level of integrity.

Open, Clear, and Forthright

Things change and new circumstances may make if less feasible or even impossible for you to complete your initial commitment  (i.e.,  you said it but could not do it.)

However, when what you committed to changes, openly communicating this, and discussing options with those impacted mitigates your risk of being perceived as dishonest.

Blindly Forging Ahead

Making a personal commitment does not entail being successful at all costs but collaborating with others to achieve positive outcomes when the unforeseen occurs is critical.

Blindly forging ahead with your initial approach when it has become unfeasible can be both painful and unproductive.  Our moral foundation will not be cracked because we fail, only if we ignore that failure and hide it from others.

Explore Alternatives

When I was young my parents use to advise me; Succeeding is important but trying is critical.  If we have accepted accountability for a task or deliverable it is possible we won’t achieve it.

This does not impinge upon our integrity as long as we both tried and kept everyone who will be impacted apprised of our efforts and well as consulting them and seeking assistance where it makes sense.

Maintain your personal integrity with others – try your best and keep them informed.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Feeling Good About Yourself

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Empowerment is an important way to help yourself become stronger and more confident, especially in controlling your life and claiming what is yours by right.

I have posted before around the importance of leaders creating a framework that enables others to be empowered.  Today’s post will focus on individual empowerment.

Ask for Forgiveness

A key way to exercise empowerment is to proceed with confidence whether explicitly authorized or not.  If questioned about your actions, in the worse case just apologizes for overstepping and ask for forgiveness.

There are boundaries to this approach that must be adhered to.  If explicitly forbidden from taking a specific action or if the action borders on improper behavior (e.g., illegal, immoral and so on) don’t do it.

If you plan to ask for forgiveness post mortem (per-say) it is critical you have a solid justification and realistic support for your actions.

Empowerment not Anarchy

Taking control of your life does not mean at the expense of all else.  Doing anything you want is a form of anarchy and is not being advocated here.

Taking charge when it makes sense to do so and in doing so enhance your own self-worth and build personal confidence is strongly advocated.   But, be sure to apply a large dose of common sense before acting, perhaps recklessly.

Better Results

Acting based on the directions given by others can be demeaning and also typically will have reduced buy-in by you relative to the matter at hand.  For the sake of your own self worth take personal accountability and responsibility whenever you can.  Empower yourself.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Avoiding Mistakes

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Mistakes are the product of ill-conceived actions that are typically fraught with peril.  Based on this description of the root cause of mistakes, they are totally avoidable.

Simply put aside high risk approaches conceived in haste and the likelihood you will make a mistake is very low if non-existent.  This is a strong argument for consistently practicing careful analysis and thought.

Reality Bites

In practice taking the time and effort to apply careful analysis and planning to everything we do is impractical.   While careful forethought is a wise approach the situational context is a key factor affecting the feasibility of behaving this way.

Undertaking expediency often leads to mistakes because the urgency can drive us to rushed decision making that is not fully thought out and high risk.

The reality is mistakes can be avoided, however, it is often not a simple thing to do.  As the first step in any decision-making process, it’s most helpful to ask yourself “What can go wrong and if it does how sorry will I be?”

Considering the negative impacts, even if only at a high level focusing on the obvious, allows you to make a choice to stop and take time, even in the face of percieved urgency.

Mistakes can be Painful

While taking too much care to avoid mistakes can lead to missed opportunities taking too little can be painful.  Spending a little effort to help achieve the right balance is always worthwhile.

Avoid the pain, maximize the gain, think a little before you act.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Prioritize

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Our daily activities include many options.   What we choose to do at any moment is our choice.   In this context, the activity can be related to work, leisure or just rest (sleeping).

Often the environment or other people influence the choice of action to such a strong degree we declare “I had to do it” or “You made me do it”.  This is a fair comment, as overriding influences external to yourself is not always easy but it is not accurate. 

Ultimately, it’s up to you

At one extreme, if you are being robbed at gunpoint, it is arguable there is only one right behavioural choice, give the robber what they want.  While that might be the most common response to this situation, different responses have been known to happen (e.g., resistance, attack). 

The way you choose to behave or respond in any given situation may well feel like it was situational, often simply because the circumstances dictate it is the best response.  

However, notwithstanding all the influences present,  you make the decision.  Whether made in the moment or time is available for consideration having an advance understanding of your priorities can really help shape whatever you decide to do. 

Personal Priorities

Personal priorities stem from your personal life goals and values.  In many cases, you will apply these without forethought.  For example in the robber situation, it is very common for our personal value to preserve life to kick in. 

For some, preserving personal wealth is a higher priority and the response may be to resist giving the robber what they seek.  Having an advance sense of our priorities can enable us to make better choices.  Or at least be very comfortable in the choice we make.  

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Taking Action

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Action decisions are always yours to make.  The question of whether someone wants you to do something is relevant, but the decision to proceed or not is solely yours.

Sometimes we ask ourselves what does our signifant other or leader or key stakeholders expect.  Meeting expectations can be very fullfilling both for you and the person whose expectations you are addressing, but is it what you want to do.

You are in Charge

Whether the initial motivation to act originates internally (within yourself) or externally ( from others) you should never do anything that does not going to satisfy you.

That is not to say acting to the benefit of other (altruistic) behaviour is not the best thing to do but the underlying motivation, to ensure best results,  has to be your own.

Deciding to act solely on the request and expectation of others rarely leads to the best outcomes.  Not to say the obvious objective, what the other person wanted, will not be accomplished, it might.

However, doing something that is not what you wanted to do will have a negative impact on your psyche, maybe not readily apparent or immediate, but it will be there and over time personal resentment  could peak out its ugly head.

Do or do not, you choose

Whatever decisions you make, the most important advise to heed is your own.  You may decide to proceed or not, whatever option as long as it was your own selection all will be good.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Reputation Part 2

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Yesterdays post explored the concept of personal reputation.  In summary, it is of great value to you to understand your own reputation (as varied by audience).

Leveraging your reputation is an invaluable tool in supporting achievement of your goals.  Managing your behaviour (how you act and what you do) will manage your reputation.

Group Think

Groups of people achieve gang mentality  by sharing their perceptions about others with each other.  The communication methods can include social media, public media, in person, water cooler gossip and a variety of other ways.

The group is not logical and underlying bias can influence the perceptions.  That is for example a group may have a conservative or liberal bias.

The reputation you have within the group is mostly not openly shared with you so you need to figure it out through observation.  This can include conversational ploys to determine what others think of you.

Behaviour and Reputation

Reputational behaviour is not only what you say and do but ranges from the clothes you wear to the cut of your the cut of your hair.  How loud you speak or the effectiveness of your deodorant all inluence reputation.

Since a lot of your reputation can be derived from gossip and peoples bias the trick is to figure out what those bias are (through logic and intuition) and use them to craft the reputation you seek.

Your reputational goal could be respect, isolation (just leave me alone) , a trusted advisor or any of a plethoria of things.  Whatever it is, you can craft your behaviour to formulate the matching perceptions.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Going with the default

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Regular readers will be well aware in my belief we are accountable and control our destinies.  You choose how to interpret the world around you, so choose wisely.

Suprisingly though, it occured to me today, sometimes I personally prefer the default result.  That is not to say I give up my responsibilty for controlling my own destiny, just that on occassion I do choose to let fate decide.

What to do?

In its simplest form, personal decision making is just an answer to the question, what should I do?  Gathering the data, weighing the options, considering the pros and cons is my normal path.

The logical analysis is more objective and less emotional . In some cases where an easy decision is not apparent, that is you are on the fence,  maybe letting circumstance drive the conclusion is not a bad approach.

For Example

We are living longer lives, this is a stastical fact in most of the worlds highly developed countries.  Most of these countries have built structures around retirement at age 65.

Things like pension, old age medical benefits, price discounts, etc, are all designed with the target age of 65.  Or I should say they were, that is slowly changing with talk of 70 being the new 65.

So, the question arises. for some, retire at 65 or even a bit earlier or keep working and retire later.

If you are on the fence, you could keep working until forcibly retired,  then the decision is made for you.  Easier, if not better.  Issue resolved by circumstance and no problem as you could go either way.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Taking control

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If you are not controlling the shape of your own destiny, who is?  If not you, who should it be?  That is, does it make sense to follow and let others drive? Probably, sometimes.

No Simple Answer

The amount of control you influence over yourself and others is best balanced carefully.  Too much control can disaffect others and lead to bad results.

Exercising too little control over events that can directly affect you can likewise cause frustration, anger, sadness(for both you and others).  While, exercising just the right amount can help you achieve the personal destiny you seek.

Control and Leadership

Leaders exercise control through reliance on specific behavioural attributes like strong communication and self awareness skills.  Exercising control through micro or direct management skills is not always the most effective methodology.

Control is simply the exercise of power (whether earned or granted)  to influence or direct people’s behavior or the course of events.  Events such as your own personal destiny.

The exercise of power in inappropriate ways can backfire.  Leaders recognize a careful balance of technique is more likely to achieve the desired results.

Exercising control through power can be effective whether you have been granted power (like an army officer) or earned it through indirect facilitation and advice.

Judging a scenario (self awareness) is critical to assessing the optimal balance of technique and earned versus granted power when exercising control.

Next time you encounter a situation where your input (control) can influence positive outcomes, or you want to influence the outcome,  give some thought to the best approach before leaping into the fray.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

More behavioural thoughts

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Does the reason you behaved in a specific way mitigate the impacts of that behaviour?  Is personal accountablity tanamount to resonsibility or do external factors weigh in?

An example would be a murderer  who was deemed not accountable for their actions.  In these cases, many cultures are sympathetic making allowances for what is terrifically bad behaviour.

The consequences might become psychiatric rehabilitation, forgiveness and reintegration into society.  Or the killer might recieve the death penalty.

Alternatively they may be caged for a long time to protect them from others and or rehabilitate them.  These actions resulting from this murderous behaviour vary, and are principally determined based on motivation.

Pure Personal Accountability

If the determining factor for consequences was soley based on personal accountablity, the reactions to a persons specific behaviour would probably be more consistent,

That is, a killer made the decision to kill, (other factors are irrelevant) the behaviour is theirs and theirs alone).  The contextual and external reasons for the behaviour do not mitigate it.

 You made me do it

The question is, can any factors, ( for example hunger, torture, ridicule, greed), drive your behaviour or are action decisions yours alone to make.

A interesting personal test of this can be tried the next time you are angry.  Simply start with the internal question – Why am I angry?  Usually you will be able to quickly think of the prime causes.

Most likely it will be something like he/she made me mad, or a scenario or circumstances.  These will rarely include; “I chose to be angry or I decided anger was appropriate in this case to address the things that were occurring.”

Part two of this self examination is the question, if I did not choose to be angry, is this acceptable.  Are not my emotions, thoughts and deeds mine to control?

For me, this is a rhetorical question.  The answer is an emphatic yes.  So, I try to learn from this and vow to myself, next time I will conciously decide if I want to be angry.  Owning my actions is so much more satisfying than not.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Line or Staff

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Professionals with a proven skills, training and a strong track record are often hired to provide expert advice.  These consultants can assist organizations in valuable ways, but there are some caveats.

Roles Based Management

Armies typically classify their officers as either line or staff.  At a very high level the two types exist to distinguish between those that manage the battles (line) and those that provide support and strategy (staff).

In the military model, line mangers are at the front line of the organizational goals.  They execute the strategy.  Their performance can be directly aligned with the organizations outcomes.

Staff managers have specific expertise and focus on doing what is needed to enable line managers to succeed .  In this context, quality of advice and support provided is the performance measure.

Usually staff managers success is not linked to that of line managers directly.  Typically the highest levels of organizational power lie with line managers.  Staff managers input is important but the decision and action falls to the line.

Back to consultants

The  work of consultants is very much, using the armys model, staff work.  It is important and necessary work but there is no accountability for results.

If the advice works, the consultants reputation is enhanced, if not they probably don’t stay in the business long.  Although over the years I have frequently seen consultants dodge the qaulity bullet.

Staff Managers in Line Management roles

One of the most frustrating experiences is when a line manager operates with a consultanting or staff managers mind set.   Although they are in a role that is intended to oversee the deliverly of strategic results, their consulting mindset is focused on advice not execution.

Typically, this leads to high turnover in that area of the organization.