Achieve with Accountability

Chapter 4Accountability Transcends

Powerful Shift in Perception

Ask a random sampling of ten or more reports, peers, individual contributors, supervisors, managers, directors, and senior leaders, “What is your job?” and listen closely to their replies.

How many of the responses centered predominantly on your “must‐achieve desired results”? What percentage of the answers chiefly zoomed in on a list of activities and duties you often will find included in a job description?

Teams and organizations derive considerable benefits when employees at all levels view and approach their work with a staunch focus on must‐achieve desired results rather than activity, duties, and roles.

Think back to a time in your professional career when you were at your “personal best” and most engaged in your work.

For most of us, those personal bests were during times when we were part of a team, on a mission to achieve something special, and believed we were playing a game we could win. It is during those moments that individuals voluntarily choose to take accountability and to go above and beyond what is “required” to help the team achieve what matters most.

A focus on top desired results ingrains that shift in thinking and provokes beneficial changes in the way employees go about their work. Once grounded in a focus on what matters most and feeling that they are part of something bigger, meaningful, and important, employees are more aware and conscious of how their work has an impact on other people ...