No Accountability

Most people are not accountable for their actions and consequences at their work. The focus is always on the outcome and goals. Those are important. However, the daily work you put in makes a lot of difference, consistent commitments. It makes you focus on quality, process and system. When you master the craft, you can turn up and turn down the outcome as per your requirement.

One of my friends created a WhatsApp group to be accountable for our actions. No points for guessing it was created on 1st Jan 2022. We started with a lot of enthusiasm. For January, we all put in the status of our daily actions, days we could not do it and so on. After a while we also stopped it. No message. No updates and occasional updates. It didn’t serve us like it was meant to be.

Here is my analysis of why it was not effective for us.

1. The daily task was not clearly defined in terms of its size. There was no way to measure the consistency based on time and effort
2. When we don’t do it we couldn’t share our daily setbacks here
3. It was energy draining to share none to little progress
4. We were never trained how to give a constructive feedback
5. We have not been trained to take criticism
6. The activities by each one was very different in terms of action
7. There was no daily incentive or motivate on keep going
8. We have not learned how to support each other and the focus is mainly on self-action.
9. The task taken at times is so overwhelming and large that it cannot be converted into daily actions
10. It’s not an easy commitment to do as well

I think it’s the task that you take that could also make a difference in your commitment. To be accountable is a skill. We need to learn how to be accountable, communicate it and also build a team or peer groups around it. It’s not something you can take for granted.

I hope you know that an external dopamine hit is like watching a motivational film in a loop. Being a part of a group only for positive reinforcement won’t change your life.