During one of my recent sales coaching sessions, a salesperson and I were reviewing his “homework.” This salesperson had made commitments to do a certain number of new business-related activities in order to advance the sales process with several new opportunities. Our review showed that he had fallen short on two of the three areas that he had committed to work on. These activities were defined by him, not me, and he specifically had asked me to hold him accountable to accomplishing them.
Since this is a relatively new coaching relationship and he was making some progress, I first thought to focus on just the positives. Before coming to me, he said he was not doing any new relationship-building activities. So I figured a little progress still counted as progress.
But then I remembered that I am in the “promise keepers” business. Holding him accountable is my job—and I needed to make him feel uncomfortable for not doing what he said he would do. I told the salesperson that I’m not doing him any favors if I go easy on him when he falls short of his commitments.
I reminded him that he had made a promise when he committed to doing certain activities within the 30-day period. And I had promised to hold him accountable to these efforts, just as he had asked me to do. One broken promise was more than enough, and so I didn’t sugarcoat anything. I made him feel uncomfortable in the wake of his broken commitments.
But after the meeting, I wondered if I had pushed him too hard. Then I thought to myself, it’s kinda like polishing silver: You need a little friction to get a good shine.
Three days later, I texted him to say that I thought we had had a great meeting. This is what he texted back:
Thanks, Marc! Feel free to be tough on me in our meetings, never need to hold anything back with me! I desire success and want to learn how to get there. Thanks for all you do.
Accountability is a powerful motivator. It is key to getting things done no matter what kind of work you do.
And whether you’re a CEO, a supervisor or a business coach, your job is to hold people accountable. As a manager, you manage people’s development as well as their actions. It’s your (and my) obligation to make sure they do what they say they will do (and do what they do better in general). We accomplish this through sincere encouragement; honest feedback; authentic dialogue; and, yes, even with uncomfortable conversations when people fail to meet their goals.
No one ever said leadership and management would be easy. Some of you might remember that I addressed this in the “extreme ownership” blog a while back. I quoted Jocko Willink and Leif Babin’s book Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win and shared this important premise: “There are no bad teams, only bad leaders.” For a refresher on this topic, go to http://bit.ly/29bdp0H
In the meantime, be a great leader and lead! Don’t be afraid to challenge your people and even make them uncomfortable if necessary.
A promise is a promise. They make them and promise to keep them; you promise to hold them accountable to that.
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