Jackie: Welcome to Slingshot25 Shotcast, a series of bite-sized podcasts that will feel like an espresso shot to your brain. I’m Jackie.
Courtney: And I’m Courtney.
Jackie: And something we’ve been thinking about is
Courtney: Well, accountability.
Jackie: Yeah. We talk about that all the time. That’s ‘
Courtney: cause everybody’s thinking about it.
Mm.
Jackie: So, we, um, just have a little nugget, I think a little nugget to share.
Should we say that maybe this will be a really brief episode or
Courtney: Probably not?
Jackie: Yeah. You’ll probably end up going on and on. Actually. It’s more likely I’m going to end up going on and on like I am right now.
Courtney: That’s great.
Jackie: Should I get us started? Yes. I’m going to say something really clever about accountability.
Courtney: Okay.
Jackie: Here is what accountability is. Accountability is an expression of high commitment. It is not a cure for low commitment. Oh, that was like deep, that’s like some Zen Buddhism right there.
Courtney: We all think why? But, but, but I got to hold people accountable. When you say not for low commitment. Like what about all these people,
Jackie: Right.
Courtney: Those are on my team that aren’t doing their job
Jackie: Well, there is a little nuance in how we think about this. There is what we sometimes say, a little pointy end of the stick, when it comes to accountability. Um, you don’t have unlimited patience or loyalty with anyone, but when we flip accountability over and realize that we perhaps conceive of it in a way that isn’t terribly helpful in the first place, meaning that we can tend to conceive of it as…
You know, from the, from the poignant side, from the holding someone accountable, punitive side of accountability, all we’re doing is saying, let’s flip this over and let’s lead into accountability from the side that says, it’s about creating an environment where people are more likely to express their high commitment.
And we know the pointy end of the stick is there, when necessary, but when we start with the pointy end of the stick and conceive of it that way, we miss all the benefit, you know, reaping all the benefits of, of creating a place where. We inspire people to and invite people to show their commitment. Like, just fly their flag of commitment to care about what happens next because of the work that they do.
Courtney: Yeah, and I think that that expression is even one step higher of just do we have an environment where people can even get the work done at all.
Jackie: Right,
Courtney: Right. So, when we think about, we talk about the environment a lot because the first, it’s a leader’s job to create an environment where people can be successful.
Jackie: Right.
Courtney: It’s like flat out and, and that is when we want to hold, we hold people accountable. We want people to be accountable. The first thing a leader should do is back up and say, do they have a chance to do that? And there’s a lot of things in the environment that actually make it really, really hard for people to be accountable for them to care, to try to do their work.
Things like do they have expectations? Do they have information? Do they have. Processes that work? Do we have tools that talk to each other? Are our rewards and incentives set up correctly? And so, when we say we want to let a create an environment, people can be accountable, right? That you, you want to make sure that I, I even have a chance to get the work done.
And so, the analogy we use a lot is in a, like I, I’ve become a crazy plant lady since my kids are empty-nest, I’m empty-nest, and now I have plants instead of kids. And if a flower is. Not growing, like the leaves are turning brown or the petals are falling off or whatever. I’ve had a lot of weird things happen with my plants.
Um, we don’t try to blame the flower instantly. You, you try to figure out what do I do with the soil? What do I do with the water? What do I do with the sunlight? Do they have enough nutrients? Right? We, we fix. The environment. We don’t punish and blame and shame the stupid flower, why aren’t you growing?
Right? It doesn’t work like that. But with our employees, we do it all the time. We’re like, oh, our environment doesn’t have good expectations. The tools don’t work. We haven’t, uh, we’re, we’re celebrating rewarding bad behavior left, right, and center. And then we say, well, what’s wrong with this employee? And then sometimes we say, oh, we better get a different employee.
Let’s put them in here. And another one and another one like, oh. And then you talk to a team and like, oh, we’ve had four leaders in this job in 18 months. We have the worst recruiting team in history. No, you don’t have a job that anyone can do successfully, like step back. If you want an accountable world, if you want a high-performing team, you’ve got to ask yourself, can people perform in this?
Will they grow here? Can they thrive? Because if you have that, then you’re going to have a highly accountable culture. You’re going to have a mindset and a, and people behaving in a way where they want to be in that environment. They want to be part of that team. ’cause they know they can win. And when you see people pulling back from that, they just know they don’t have a chance.
Jackie: Hmm. That’s really good. I, I really didn’t hear a word you said after you told me that your plants have replaced your children.
Courtney: Well, I hope my kids don’t listen to this, but it’s kind of true.
Jackie: I’m not sure how healthy that is, but at least I know that it’s very unlikely that any one of your plants is going to back into your car in the driveway.
Courtney: Oh, that’s true.
Jackie: So, there’s that.
Courtney: Yeah. See, bonus.
Jackie: Well, I feel like we should end on that. Um, and that’s all for this episode of our Shotcast, but we always have much more to say. And so, if you want, um, drop us a line at Slingshot25.com. Until next time.
