Achieve with Accountability

ACCOUNTABILITY IS THE CATALYST THAT IGNITES: Accelerated Change, Robust Employee Engagement, Intensified Ownership, Relentless Perseverance, Impeccable Alignment, and propels individuals, teams and organizations to desired results.

Accountability crumbles silos, boosts teamwork and collaboration, strengthens camaraderie, creativity, resiliency, agility, trust, and communication

Achieve with Accountability presents a recipe for awakening the whatever it takes attitude to achieve what matters most to individuals, teams and organizations. Discover how to transform accountability into a positive, engaging and forward looking experience that will secure your position in the new world of work. Learn how to kick-start a revolution that will blast your team or organization to new heights of success. We are in a brawl with no rules, where the fast, flexible and agile will eat and spit out the slow, over-thinking and complacent. When you relinquish accountability you place your future in the hands of other people or events. It's only by taking accountability and ownership for our circumstances that we can achieve what matters most. Embrace the accountability fundamentals that have helped individuals, teams and organizations for years to achieve and exceed what matters most.

With the world coming at us fast and furious every day, it's easy to feel like you've lost control of your own life, your team or your organization. By choosing to take and lead accountability you reclaim control and are able to direct your own destiny.

• Develop the agility, flexibility and resiliency to adapt and thrive during constant change
• Foster a can-do, resolute, solutions focus in the face of difficult challenges, obstacles and barriers
• Eradicate the blame-game and vanquish excuse-making that stifles peak performance
• Shed feelings of disarray, discomfort, apathy, entitlement, indifference and despair
• Take control over your circumstances and achieve what matters most
• Unleash voluntary contributions of discretionary performance that is often left untapped in individuals, teams and organizations
• Establish unshakable trust and credibility

Accountability is a current that feeds into the slipstream of success. Your performance, your decisions, and your results are all your responsibility; when you operate from that premise, magic happens. Achieve with Accountability shows you how to nourish that can-do mindset, so you can begin to achieve what matters most.

The Author xi

Resources, Solutions, and Workshops xiii

Preface: Taking Accountability xv

Chapter 1 Taking Accountability 1

Positively the Best Decision 1

Take Accountability or Blame? The Stakes Are High 5

The Magic of Taking Accountability 6

The Rewards of Taking Accountability 10

Accountability Accelerator 11

Shine the Spotlight on the One and Only 15

An Unexpected and Illuminating Discovery 19

Do They Know the Rules of the Game? 21

Chapter 2 Choices 35

Decisions Determine Destiny 35

Stay the Course—Avoid Drowning “Below the Water” 39

Beware of the Bell 43

Leading Accountability—It Is a Choice, and Everyone’s Job 46

Where Do They Learn Those Things? 49

Words Are Cheap—The Actions We Choose Are What Matters 52

The Enemies: Justifications, Explanations, Reasons, Rationalizations, Vindications, and Excuses 54

Why Did Randy Cross the Road? 56

Chapter 3 Accountability—What Is It? 67

Once Defined, It Flows 67

Are You Fully Recognizing Your Realities? 74

The Eyes Have It 76

Have You Accepted Ownership for Your Realities? 78

Yoda—The Accountability Coach 81

Lessons from Hyrum 83

Solutions Abound 86

The Obvious Next Step 90

Chapter 4 Accountability Transcends 97

Powerful Shift in Perception 97

Cement the Focus 100

The Magical Mindset Shift 103

Lessons from the Marauders 106

Accountability Trumps Responsibility 109

To LAG or to LEAD 111

Chapter 5 The Preeminent Organization 117

Accountability Is the Catalyst 117

Shaping an Accountable Culture 120

Ignite Desired Accountable Behaviors 122

The Power of Genuine Appreciation 127

Culture: How We Do Things Around Here 129

Forging an Accountable Culture: Little Things Matter—A Lot! 131

Are the Experiences in Your Culture Nurturing Accountability? 133

The Relationship Triad: Experiences, Beliefs and Actions 135

You Alone Are Accountable for How You Are Perceived 137

Sustaining an Accountable Culture: Tune-Ups Required 139

Accountability Tip: Do Not Shoulder Their Accountabilities 142

Do Not Dwell on Why: Keep Moving Forward 144

Accountability in Times of Change: Overcome Fear and Denial 146

The Pinnacle: The Accountable Organization 150

Live and Lead Accountably 161

Index 163

MIKE EVANS is the Executive Vice President of QuestMark. He has served in senior leadership and consulting roles with Kotter International, FranklinCovey, and Tom Peters Company. He has developed a unique perspective from working alongside a star studded list of world-renowned thought leaders, including Dr. John Kotter, Dr. Stephen Covey, Tom Peters, Jim Kouzes, Hyrum Smith, Steve Farber and Chris McChesney. He consults with senior teams, delivers keynote speeches, facilitates custom workshops and provides coaching and consulting on a variety of subject areas, including Personal and Organizational Accountability, Change Leadership, Culture Shaping, Flawless Execution and Exemplary Leadership.

www.questmarkcompany.com; www.achievewithaccountability.com

In today’s complex, highly competitive, global environment, those who will survive and thrive in this new world of work are individuals, teams, and organizations who can maintain high levels of accountability and remain focused on must-achieve desired results. Achieve with Accountability is your personal handbook for awakening your (or your team or organization’s) inner confidence, drive, perseverance, determination, resolve, and can-do mindset. It will hone your skills and capacity to achieve what matters most.

Discover what impels top-performing individuals, teams, and organizations to excel, thrive, and achieve their most desired results. Let leadership expert Mike Evans show you how to awaken and release from in you, your team, and your organization the discretionary performance that resides within, but is often left untapped. Transform accountability into an engaging, upbeat, positive, forward looking experience that will secure you, your team, and your organization a position in the new world of work.

• Cultivate resiliency, agility, and steely resolve
• Boost collaboration, teamwork, and camaraderie
• Crumble silos and abolish territorialism
• Establish unshakable trust and credibility
• Obliterate excuse-making and the blame-game
• Invigorate ownership, engagement, and alignment
• Unleash creativity and a focus on solutions

As Mike Evans explains, when you abdicate accountability you relinquish control of your destiny and place your fate in the hands of other people and events. Without fluff, hyperbole, rhetoric, or complicated models, Achieve with Accountability reveals how individuals, teams, and organizations adopt and nourish the focus, determination, resolve, and perseverance needed to achieve what is most important. Complacency and the status quo are the death-knell to individuals, teams, and organizations.

This must-have resource reveals how to develop the agility, flexibility, and resiliency to flourish in today’s unpredictable world of constant change. The author details how to cultivate “both individually and organizationally” a resolute, whatever it takes, mindset to capitalize on opportunities and to overcome challenges, barriers, and obstacles. This essential guide arms you with an easily implemented game plan to eradicate the blame-game and vanquish the excuse making that stifles optimal performance. Learn how to embrace and instill a solutions focus even in the face of obstructions, impediments, and difficulties.

You will learn how to extinguish the toxic peak-performance inhibitors of apathy, cynicism, entitlement, indifference, disarray, discomfort, and despair. Achieve with Accountability equips individuals, teams, and organizations with the keys to take control of their destiny to achieve what matters most.

Use Achieve with Accountability as your guide to apply the accountability fundamentals that have allowed thousands of individuals, teams, and organizations to achieve and exceed their desired results.