Accountability Doesn't Have to Feel Heavy

This week I gave a virtual keynote to a large company.

Close to a thousand people on the call, spread across the country.

The topic they asked me to speak on was accountability.

Most people hear that word and brace a little.

It sounds like more weight. Another thing to carry, another way to come up short, someone standing over your shoulder waiting for you to miss.

When accountability starts to feel that heavy, it helps to look at where the weight is actually coming from.

Most of the time it is the fog around the work.

Nobody said out loud who owned what.

The deadline was vague.

Two people each assumed the other one had it handled.

Everyone is putting in the effort and still bracing for the thing to fall apart, because none of it was made clear at the start.

Getting clear up front is what takes the weight off.

One Job. No Margin. Nobody Watching.

I learned this snapping a football at Tulane.

Long snapping is one job.

Fifteen yards back, one motion, done the same way every single time on every field goal and punt.

Nobody notices the snapper when he does it right.

The only time you hear his name is when he gets it wrong and the play blows up in front of everybody.

There is no margin for error and nowhere to hide.

I could not see the target the way my teammates could, so I could not afford to leave anything to assumption.

Before every snap my punter and I ran the same exchange.

Where he was lining up, the count, the depth, the cadence.

I asked him and confirmed it every time.

The reliability people trusted me for came from getting clear before the ball ever moved.

Turn Accountability Around

Here is the part that changed how I think about the word.

Most people aim accountability outward.

How do I get this person to do what they said they would?

How do I hold my team to it?

Turn it around and start with yourself.

Ask how you can be accountable to the people around you first.

When you show up reliable, you hand people something solid to stand on, and they stop having to chase you for it.

It runs both ways too.

If you are the one asking for something, part of your job is asking the right question up front.

When do you actually need this by.

A lot of the time the answer that sounds like tomorrow really means the end of the month, and you would never know unless you asked.

Ask the question early and most broken commitments never happen in the first place.

Reliability Is Built When Nobody Is Watching

None of this works without one quiet habit underneath it.

Reliability builds up slowly.

You keep small commitments over and over, until people stop wondering whether you will follow through.

That is how trust gets made.

It is slow and unglamorous and there is no shortcut version of it.

I practiced snapping at five in the morning for years with nobody making me do it, long before anyone was keeping score.

That is where it starts, with the promises you keep when no one is watching.

So if accountability has been sitting on you like a weight lately, look at the clarity before you question your own willpower.

Get specific about who owns what.

Ask the question you have been assuming the answer to.

Keep the small promises, especially the ones only you know about.

The load gets lighter fast, and the people around you feel the difference before you say a word about it.

Aaron