There is one of those old stories about the company President and the young, new manager. The young guy asks the senior guy how to be successful, and the President says, “Good decisions” and glares back at him. Awkward pause. The young guy thinks about it and ask back, “Excuse me, sir, but how do I learn to make good decisions?”. The President fires back, “Bad decisions!”.I love that. It is absolutely true. However, I come across a lot of people who are fearful of taking risks, because of the negative implications of ‘bad decisions’.
One of the first powerful things I learned when I studied to become a Performance Coach is that there is no such thing as failure, only feedback. It is a fundamental principle in coaching. It’s not good or bad, right or wrong. It is information. So, I did something. It did not turn out the way I wanted. Now I can examine the results and make a different choice.
Unless I am so hung up in guilt, shame, fear, paralysis or what other people are thinking. It is hard to be open to possibility if I am defending myself against blame, but it is absolutely freeing to be able to look at results and decide to do something different.
There is a difference between what is called accountability, but rather is really blame or responsibility. People use them synonymously and wonder why other people get terrified, or shrink away or glaze over. Accountability is accounting for the steps that led to a certain outcome. By training I am an accountant, so I get that. Opening balance, debits, credits, closing balance. It is objective. It is what it is. Accountability identifies the context, the actions, the decisions that resulted in a certain outcome. I can fully identify my role in the outcome when I am accountable.
Blame is where someone takes the accountability and adds a value judgment. That was good, or bad. Stupid or brilliant. Right or wrong. They take their own values and superimpose them on the outcome. This can be thrilling or absolutely crushing.
It is said that the actual event is not the real issue. The issue is how I viewed the event through my filter of values and then how that judgment made me feel. I made stuff up about the event, and it made me angry. Or mad. Or happy. And then I go off.
Some of the greatest discoveries came out of mistakes, and most of the great leaders we admire had some form of what could have been considered failures. So, in your organization, are you allowing yourself and the people who work for you the space to experiment, and to be accountable for the results? Will you stand in the gap for them as they grow?
If you do, it might be a bad decision. Or a good one.
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