Uncommon Accountability. Michael Lennington
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from some unnamed external power or authority. In those examples, one person with authority blames and punishes another person who lacks authority. The authority is active, the person being punished is passive. Accountability as defined above is profoundly asymmetrical.
There were no mentions of the benefits of accountability. No description of personal growth. Nothing about accountability's life‐changing power. If you believe the dictionary definitions, you would think that people wanting to take more accountability must first become masochistic. Success, according to Webster's, requires punishment!
This traditional view of accountability as punishment creates a power dynamic where authorities seek to assign blame and performers seek to shift it. Accountability in this traditional view is something to be avoided when possible. Further, a person with authority places blame based on the implicit assumption that the performer intended to make a mistake or to fall short. What a mess! It's no wonder so many people avoid this view of accountability.
Creating consequences for people when they don't do what you want them to do is not accountability, it's consequence management. Yes, consequences shape behavior but you will never get discretionary effort with negative consequences. You simply get just enough to stop the consequences, and it comes with collateral damage, from passive resistance to outright sabotage. Ultimately, we choose our consequences in life by the choices we make every day.
There is another definition of accountability, one that isn't in the dictionary. It is a definition that many people naturally understand and gravitate toward. In this intuitive understanding, personal accountability isn't about negative consequences for poor performance, it's about taking personal ownership of one's state in life. This view of accountability is the foundation of this book.
We either walk our own personal path toward greater accountability, or we don't. No one else can hold us accountable, only we can hold ourselves accountable. In fact, looking for someone else to hold you accountable may be the most unaccountable thing that you can do.
True accountability is based on the realization that we all have free‐will choice. By the way, if you think that free will is an illusion and that it does not exist, you are free to hold that belief! For the rest of us who think that we actually do have choices in life, this realization is earth‐shattering. If we believe that we “have to” do things, those things naturally become a burden. When we “have to” do something, we feel trapped, coerced into doing things that others want us to do. Life lived with a have‐to mindset can begin to feel like a prison.
As soon as we realize that everything is a choice, the prison walls disappear. When we choose to do something rather than have to, we have a greater sense of personal control and freedom. Obviously, consequences come with every choice. When you take an action (or avoid taking one), you are also choosing the consequences of that action. It's not that consequences are not a part of accountability, it's just that if you are accountable, you see them differently. You realize that you choose your consequences in life.
YOUR CHOICES DETERMINE YOUR LIFE
“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. It is up to you to give [life] a meaning.” “Freedom is what we do with what is done to us.”
– Jean‐Paul Sartre
A few years ago, we asked our 12 Week Year community to share with us their personal experiences with our execution system, and while many of the stories were moving, one especially stood out for us. It was the story of how Barbara Shorerock, a retired real estate agent from Alberta, Canada, decided to take ownership of the toughest challenge in her life. What follows is her story in her own words.
At the beginning of 2017, a friend told me about The 12 Week Year, and I borrowed the book from the library, and read it. After 22 years of running a real estate business, and 10 years of running my own company before that, The 12 Week Year made sense to me. I was used to structure in my life, and planning, and achieving.
But now I was retired. I was looking ahead at the next five years without a need to make sales or to accomplish things financially. That part of my life was set. I couldn't change it now. Now the question before me was, how was I going to operate going forward?
I read The 12 Week Year with that in mind. With aspirations for personal things – fitness and health, family, friends, and community – I thought, “I can make that happen.” My first 12 weeks were going to be really exciting!
That feeling changed quickly. By the end of February, I learned that I had cancer. By the end of March, at the end of the first 12 weeks, I knew that it was metastatic breast cancer, having already spread to lung and liver, and it was serious.
After the initial shock wore off, I realized that I still had choice about how I would fight my battle and live out the rest of my life, not knowing if that would be a few months, or if I'm fortunate, a number of years.
My new life was all about chemotherapy. Every week, it was up to the chemo clinic, get my chemo injections. Before I even had a chance to implement my “be a better friend” program, I had to call upon my friends and my daughter to drive me around every week. To feed me. To care for me.
After chemo, my choice was to get stronger.
I started up some of the things that I had left behind, such as volunteering for English as a Second Language, volunteering at the theater. I also started walking again, with a goal that by the end of the year I would be able to walk for 60 minutes. My first walk after all the antibiotics was to the end of the block and back.
Other things, like spending time with family, being a better friend, started up again.
It really helped with my life to think about what was in front of me, the choices I still had available to me to do the things that are important to me. The choice to not give into fear of loss, or a lack of time. I can't now, with my new reality, think about a year. But I can think about 12 weeks. I have that choice.
There were two questions that motivated me: “What if?” and “How might I?” Because I was looking forward. I looked at my one‐year vision and then put into effect what I can do in the next 12 weeks. That's easy.
It gives my days focus. When I open my day planner and look at a week at a glance and see what's there, I look at where the blank spaces are. There have been times in the last year where there were no blank spaces. Now, I actually have whole days where I can decide what to do with them. I have my goals, and I look at how I fit those in. It gives my days structure, and it gives me focus and purpose.
In spite of the discouraging diagnosis, Barbara never lost sight of the fact that she still had a choice about how to live her life. A little more than a year ago, Barbara's daughter contacted us to let us know that she had passed. When, like Barbara, we look at the choices that are available to us rather than the choices that are not, we retain the freedom to live a life of intentional purpose and fulfillment.
Coming at life from “choose to” rather than “have to” gives you the only control that you have in life. The quality of your choices determines the quality of your life. As Barbara bravely testifies, we are free to choose in all circumstances.
When my youngest (Emma) was 7 or 8, my wife, Judy, and I began confronting her with her freedom to choose for herself, and to consider the consequences of her choices. Early on, we would have to “coach” her through the process of identifying the consequences.
When Emma would ask to do something that we felt was not likely to turn out well, we would ask her, “Emma, if you do that, what do you think will happen?” This question was intended to help her learn to connect her choices with their likely consequences (natural or applied). Next, we would ask her, “Is there anything else you could do?” And then lastly, “What do you think will happen if you make that choice instead?”
In the end, even at 7, most of the time Emma would