Every week, our team spends some good quality time honing our skills, elevating our level of service, and broadening our base of knowledge. These weekly meetings have become a great source of inspiration and our team routinely walks out of each session with an ACCOUNTABILITY item or action step for the following week. In the past, I would state my accountability action and not give it much more thought; until the following week!
Not surprisingly, many members of my team found themselves doing the same thing! And guess what? We had a great time in the meetings but we often found that we were not accomplishing as much as we might have if we really ENGAGED and held ourselves and our team accountable for the weekly action steps. Here are a few of the Accountability Steps to Success that we are now employing at TMC!
- Clearly define your accountability action! Vague statements or immeasurable objectives make it difficult to get your task done! When you clearly define your action step- you make achieving your goal much easier!
- State your accountability action publicly! In a work environment, stating your accountability action to the members of your team adds a little pressure! When others know what your goals are, and you know that they know- it changes the environment! Accountability goals that are not known tend to take longer to achieve and often times get pushed to the back burner. So tell your team what you are committing to!
- Set a deadline! Accountability actions without deadlines often meet the same fate as those we do not share with our peers; they do not get done! Once you have determined what your accountability action is, then set that deadline so you can measure your success.
- Visualize your completed action step! This is the time to use your inner artist and create a visual reminder of what your accountability task is! If you are writing it on a 3×5 card (for example) you might consider writing the action step as if it had already been completed! Instead of writing, “I will make 20 extra sales calls this week”, write “I made 20 extra calls today” or “I made 100 extra calls this week”. Having a visual reminder can help keep you focused and moving in the direction of achieving your goals.
- Enroll your team! When you give others permission to give you feedback, you are turning the heat up on your accountability action! Imagine that you set a goal to make a certain number of calls and a coworker notices that you are spending very little time on the phone? Inviting your team to give GOOD feedback on your action item might result in them mentioning that, “you have not been on the phone for a while- how is your 100 additional call goal going?”. Instantly- you are refocused! Asking your team to assist you can make a big difference.
- Stand & Deliver! Make a decision to meet your accountability goal and you will inspire yourself and the other members of your team! In our last team meeting, someone stood up and said, “I will not be the one who does not meet my accountability goal- next week- you can count on me!”. Guess what happened? Several members of our team did the same! People love to be on a winning team and your decision to stand and deliver can inspire others!
Accountability actions can move us towards our goals and give us the opportunity to strengthen our offerings to our clients (As long as we are getting them DONE)!
When you clearly define your action, state it publicly, set a deadline, visualize yourself achieving your action, enroll your team for support and commit to making it happen- you are well on your way to achieving your goals and making a real difference both personally and professionally!
Cheri Perry
Monday, April 12, 2021
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