Let’s talk about the language of accountability.

When we ask people to be accountable to do certain things, let’s be clear with them about what we expect, but also that that is exactly what we expect, and we expect it to be completed.

Most people are exhausted at the end of their workday, and part of the reason they’re exhausted is they never know if they can trust John to do what John is supposed to do, Julie to do what Julie is supposed to do, and Tim to do what Tim is supposed to do. And when that’s happening, you’re going to go home at night exhausted.

But if I know how to go to John and Tim and Julie, to each one of them, to say, “John, so by Tuesday at two o’clock, you’re going to have this report turned in, and it’s going to have the three columns. It’s going to be laid out this way, and the outcome will be whatever. And you’ll bring it to me a first draft on Monday, so I can sign off that it’s going the right direction, and the completion will be by two o’clock on Tuesday. Is that clear? Is there any reason why you wouldn’t be able to hit that obligation and that commitment?

“Good. I’m going to hold you to that commitment.”

And now, Julie, notice how when we speak with authority—and authority doesn’t mean that you have a higher-than-their position. Maybe you’re talking that way to your manager.

Maybe you’re talking that way to the CEO with a smile on your face, but you’re asking for what you need, and they will respect it when people ask from you in a way that they’re clear on what’s expected, and they know this is a person not to be messed with. They’re getting stuff done. They don’t want me to let them down because they don’t want to let somebody else down.

And when we create that as the common language within the organization, miracles begin to happen.

Now I know, I know, I know there’s no pixie dust going over my head. It’s not like I live in this fairy-dusted land where everybody believes that these impossible things can happen. It doesn’t happen overnight.

But just because it isn’t happening everywhere in your organization doesn’t mean that you can’t be at the core of starting it within your organization.

And start it you will, because you’re going to feel awfully good about yourself because you’re going to go home at night and go, “What to do with all my spare time?” Because I have expected from each person what I’m planning to receive from them. I’ve spoken to them in a way that they understand that I expect it, and I’m holding their feet to the fire because if they don’t do it, I’m going to go, “John, I know you made a promise, and around here, a promise is a basis for trust, and without trust, there’s no basis for a business relationship. You broke with the trust.

“What are you going to do to rebuild the trust?

“Because we can’t keep doing this, John. You get that, right?”

Notice how when you go into the eye of the needle and you just address it, you quite frankly might be saving John’s job. Because if he doesn’t figure this out, surely he will find out that he’s not going to fit in around here and end up having his stuff all put in a box and being walked out the door.

We have an ethical obligation to hold our team members accountable for results.

And one of the biggest reasons that people don’t is because they don’t want to be held accountable.

Well, guess what? If you don’t want to be held accountable, then somebody’s going to let you fail too.

So it’s time to figure this one out and step up and hold everyone around you accountable as you should expect them to hold you accountable too.

Beautiful.

---

You gotta own it. You gotta own your job. That doesn’t mean, “Oh, I just do what’s in my job description.” It means I see the field, and I see what needs to get done, and I make those things happen. And I write up the procedures for what I do because if I’m not here tomorrow because I caught the flu, I own this job. I’m responsible for the outcomes. I can’t say, “Well, I couldn’t do it. I was sick.”

No. You can’t do that. You gotta step up, own the job, and do everything in it that’s required of it, including writing up the procedures, writing up the checklist, and making sure people around you are cross-trained to do what you’re doing. Now, if you’re thinking that silly little thought, “I would never cross-train other people to do what I could do. This is called job security,” let me assure you, if you think that way, somebody’s already looking at you from higher up in your organization and thinking you shouldn’t have job security because you’re not a team player.

Owning your job means that everything within your job, if there’s a breakdown, you’re on it. You don’t get to say afterwards, “Well, something broke down, but nobody told me how to fix it, so I just didn’t do it.”

Victimhood is the opposite of owning the job.

So figure out what you’re responsible to accomplish. Make sure that you’re finding the best, most efficient ways to get that done. Go above and beyond the call of duty in all those areas. Write up the procedures, write up the checklist, make sure your supervisor knows where they are, make sure the people around you are cross-trained, and I promise you, an opportunity at a higher pay level is ahead of you.

If you hold all the cards tight to your chest and go, “This is my job. I’ll never teach anybody. I’ll never show anybody, and boy, will they miss me when I’m sick,” you better believe they’re gonna miss you, alright, but not because you’re sick, because you’re not there anymore.

Owning your job means stepping in and being responsible for all the outcomes of your job. And you know what? It’s fun to win, so step in. Make it happen.

---

This is an oldie, but a goodie. It’s called The Magic of Thinking Big. And yes, I know there are some prehistoric comments within the book, and yet wisdom is wisdom.

It’s timeless. It’s classic.

And in this book, on page two hundred and seventy-six, under “how to think like a leader,” he says: think progress, believe in progress, push for progress.

And the reason I bring that up is we’re living in a world of AI. It’s not going anywhere, and all of us are going to need to buff, buff here and scrub, scrub there on our skill sets to bring up our critical thinking skills to a higher level of thinking.

Pedestrian thinking, as my mentor always called it—which is that easy solution thinking—is not going to withstand the challenges that come along with AI, because AI will move fast and furiously in the wrong direction if not guided by wisdom and prudence.

Taking your development seriously is an important piece. I have seen so many young people move to the highest levels of their organizations. I’ve had several different people who’ve gone through the Management Development Certification course, and they go right up to the executive team level in their twenties. I’ve seen people taking some of the other accreditations, and they become presidents of their organizations within just two short years.

You’re going to need to think and grow rich by starting to understand that you’re going to have to develop your thinking.

Learn things you never thought you were capable of learning, and decide to step all in, because in this new world of AI, there will be a very bright future for those who step into it. But for those who sit back and wait for someone to tell them what to do, it’s going to be brutal.

So decide that you will think and grow rich, develop your mind, take every learning opportunity that comes at you, master the learnings, apply the learnings, and decide to be the kind of team member that you dream that you would have around you everywhere.

Decide to step all in.

---

We have this concept of employee retention all wrong.

That it doesn’t really matter. Let’s take that right out, and let’s start with a much more clean understanding. We need the best people who are performing retained.

And so we need to make sure we have the quality retention, those who are performing, those who live by the culture. We don’t want everybody hanging around that’s being disruptive, that’s stirring the pot, that’s causing a problem, and that are creating so much chaos for those who are doing the hard work. So let’s get our head around that concept first. Now that said, this other group, we need to grow people from this area if they are willing to take the journey to become someone who is not disruptive and if they’re willing to learn how to be someone who is contributing to profit and contributing in the organization.

Because this group really matters. They’re the ones that pay the bills. They’re the ones that take care of the customers. They’re the ones that you can’t live without. And those are the ones that we must retain. So let’s think about it first of all in terms of, you know, is this the retention that we want? Is this quality retention?

Then from there, what matters? Well, we did our national research study of performance culture, and we asked executives what’s the most important thing that keeps you in an organization?

What they said is pretty surprising. They said it’s that they’re given an educational path to continue to improve their abilities and their employability. Well, isn’t that interesting? During difficult times, organizations oftentimes think about, well, we’ll cut this and we’ll cut that. And the first thing they cut is anything that develops their people. Yet your executives are some of the most important people for you to retain.

And we have to find a way to not only develop them, but develop them again with masters who understand how to increase their results so that they walk away not just having finished a course, but transform somebody’s world in terms of the results that they’re getting. So that’s what’s important to executives in terms of what’s the most important to them. For everybody in terms of retention, we have to be thinking that, you know, they’re all wanting education. Regarding most other employees, forty-eight percent said that they will leave a company if they have to work around somebody who is a pain to work around, underperforming, bad attitudes, they are intolerant of that. And so isn’t that interesting that forty-eight, half of them, will leave you because you’re not dealing with somebody that you need to be dealing with who’s causing problems in that organization.

So listen, I would rather give a kidney to somebody than fire them. I understand it. It hurts my soul when I have to say goodbye to somebody and say you’re no longer welcome on this team. It is heartbreaking. It is crushing to every bone in my body. I get how painful that is. And I have learned to reframe that such that I now think about that I need to protect my high performers from the chaos.

Because if I don’t deal with that situation, then these good performers have time robbed away from their time with family and friends. And that’s my ethical responsibility, is to deal with those kinds of things.

So since forty-eight percent say that they will leave you, and that is a big contributor to your turnover by not dealing with the stinkers who are pot stirring in your organization, that might be something that might be a great place to start.

---

Somebody broke our communication.

Okay, people don’t talk like that, but every year when we look at hundreds of different culture surveys that we’ve been doing for decades now, what we find is the number one most broken area in organizations is communication.

Here’s the funny thing about communication.

If somebody says our communication is broken, what does that mean? Does that mean that the top-down information isn’t getting all the way through the organization? Does it mean people don’t know how they tie to the strategic plan? Does it mean that we’re not working through conflict well? Does it mean that we don’t know when there’s new things going on and that isn’t being passed? Does it mean that people are tight and we’re walking around on eggshells because everybody’s afraid to say something or have a little bit of fun because everybody’s all tied up in their underwear, not understanding, hey, this is supposed to be fun? We make it fun when we make it fun, and that’s the job for each one of us to step into.

So we’re all responsible for communication, and I’m going to give you one tip to get you started, and that is this: don’t be a lazy communicator.

Lazy communicators give partial statements.

If somebody has to ask you more to know how to execute on what you just said, you were being a lazy communicator.

Americans and all humans are pretty lazy communicators as a regular course of action, but you don’t have to be. If instead you always stop and you think outcome-based thinking, outcome-based communication.

What do I need them to understand to do this? Have I spoken completion? Did I give them the why? Did I say it with the least amount of words but say everything that I needed to? Have I been thoughtful of how I constructed that, or did the first thought that came across my brain come out here? Which can happen to a lot of us. I, on occasion, am capable of doing that, so confession.

Be thoughtful about the word choices that you have to make sure that when you deliver a message, you get to the point, you say it with clarity so that nobody has to ask any questions because you anticipated those questions and you spoke with the clarity.

You know, your communication doesn’t have to be broken if you decide to fix it.

---