BusinessLawGuy's Blog

No one likes to cause an issue, be wrong, be behind on a project or deal with the fallout. But part of blameless problem solving is self-accountability.

Self-accountability is the ability to be honest with yourself, as well as being answerable and responsible for what you say and do. To do so, when something goes wrong, you need to step out of the moment and consider consequences of how you respond. It means that after making an assessment of the situation, you are honest with yourself, honest with others and take responsibility for any part you played in causing or creating the situation.

Self-accountability comes into play in all situations, not just when problems arise. If someone who gave you a project to complete asks how it’s coming, you need to be honest even if it is not quite where it should be. Because of our culture, you should have the courage to tell the truth even when it is not what the other person wants or hopes to hear.

That is because inherent in blameless problem solving is trust. We all want our co-workers to trust us and vice versa. The expectation we all will have candor with each other rests on knowing that even the honest response someone doesn’t want to hear will be dealt with respectfully.

This doesn’t mean you don’t get to explain yourself. But leading with why something negative happened or a project isn’t complete will sound like an excuse and come off being defensive. Lead of with the issue, the status, whatever you need to communicate, honestly. There will be time to explain if necessary and appropriate.

I leave you with a quote on self-accountability I found that I like:

“The right thing to do and the hard thing to do are usually the same.”

― Steve Maraboli

You are saying “What? But I want to work to make money.” We all work to be able to support ourselves. What I mean is if you focus on doing the best you can, the money likely will follow. If you only focus on money you will try to close deals that shouldn’t close or sell something to someone that they don’t need. If you are okay with that and the bad karma you deserve, you should take a look in the mirror and see if you honestly  like what you see.

The point is we generally all are selling something, whether to consumers, other businesses or internally, such as at a large company. If you only are about the sale, you will lose in the long run and may never know. Sell someone something they don’t need or have them pay too much and it will come back to haunt you. As they say, do a good job and the person will tell a few people, but do a poor job and they will tell a lot of people. Reputation is everything and you should care what people are saying about you.

A smart person I know, who is in sales, told me long ago that by focusing on the deal being win-win, as opposed to forcing a deal that shouldn’t close, success has followed with exponential referrals over the years. And then the money follows with happy clients or customers who tell others and will come back to you in the future.

If you work the scorched earth policy of doing as much business as possible instead of doing good business well, you will lose both opportunities you will learn you lost and opportunities you will never know you lost.

If you do this the right way it will allow you to escalate the level and type of work and deals you work on. This will give you more choice in who you are dealing with and what you are working on. If you work in a larger company it will allow you to move up the food chain to greater options and opportunities.

Of course, with all of this should be more money. Remember that work is about fulfillment more than money. I know what some of you are thinking, that in your business there is no unseen financial upside to working better or harder. You may be right for your given situation, but if you are not into or passionate about your work, you will be empty and unsatisfied. In that case, find something else to do or your risk having a mediocre job and a unfulfilled, and possibly mediocre, life. But if you like what you do, there is no harm to focusing on doing your best and what is right. Try it and see what happens.