Founder of Connect Consulting Group, helping leaders adapt to our BANI world with neuroscience, behavior design and lean communications.
getty
My accountability partnership began by default, not design, back in 2007. Now almost 16 years later, my accountability partner, Diana Del Bel Belluz, and I continue to check in with each other once a week (except for vacations) for five to 10 minutes at a time.
Our calls keep us on track with our individual commitments, help us accelerate our progress and encourage us to recognize each other for all that we do. And as business owners of boutique consulting firms, we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished over the years. We’ve diligently worked in our businesses and on our businesses and transformed ourselves and our work. We’ve celebrated winning new clients, presenting at conferences, rebranding our firms and ourselves, adding new services and forging new partnerships, to name a few.
Our story is a strong testimony to the powers of social accountability and support combined with flexibility and consistency. We’ve also learned a lot about how to build and maintain a successful environment for accountability, which we’ll share here.
How did two strangers stumble onto this winning formula? We met one another after enrolling in a rigorous 12-month online book writing course. We paired up for the course’s one optional feature—accountability partners—which has become the most consistent process in each of our respective businesses. And the purpose remains the same all these years later: We provide each other with peer pressure plus encouragement to move from talk to action.
While our relationship remains primarily professional, we’ve made an effort to get to know one another personally, which has strengthened our connection. We often share funny, annoying or upsetting experiences. As Diana says, it’s cathartic to have a good laugh, get something off our chest or hear another point of view.
Early on in our partnership, we determined that speaking once a week was frequent enough for our needs, even though the experts recommended speaking more often. Our book writing course teachers advocated meeting three to five times a week. And the esteemed leadership coach and best-selling author Dr. Marshall Goldsmith talks with his accountability partner every night. When Diana and I realized that book writing wasn’t our thing, we became even more committed to doing one weekly call.
Over time, we’ve made other adjustments to ensure that our adopted practices take us where we want to go rather than holding us hostage. These tips work well for us and could also help you, as well.
• Schedule a standing time each week to talk, no more than 10 minutes per call, to stay focused. (We reschedule if one of us has an unavoidable conflict. We also take breaks for vacations.)
• Revisit the schedule once a quarter to make sure the standing time fits each person’s needs.
• Before each call, decide what you want to work on the following week. Ideally, break your goals into specific steps that you can accomplish each week. And don’t overcommit. Most of the time we each commit to four to five action items maximum.
• During each call, take turns talking. First, state whether you’ve done the action you committed to last time or not. Just “yes” or “no” without any excuses. Then share the actions you plan to take the next week, making sure to be specific. Then trade places.
• Acknowledge each other’s "yeses" for making progress.
• Write down the action steps that you want to accomplish for the next week.
• Periodically—generally once a quarter—schedule a longer session to work on or discuss a particular issue you’re grappling with.
Our accountability call is usually the shortest meeting we have each week but the one we most look forward to for its positivity, inspiration and value.
When others learn about our track record as accountability partners, they often ask our advice for finding a compatible partner. We’re not as helpful here because the circumstances that brought us together were so particular.
For example, we were the only two participants back in 2007 dedicated to working on a business book. Everyone else was writing some type of self-help guide. Our shared focus on business provided enough commonality to launch our partnership.
And we’ve kept going because we share a desire to support each other as we work on our individual goals. This shared responsibility along with the frequent weekly contact has made a big impact on our success as accountability partners.
To say it another way, we started our accountability partnership by falling in line with the process rather than falling in love with a partner. Over time, our mutual respect and loyalty for each other have grown.
Our path serves us, but it’s not the only way to reach success as accountability partners. If you’re interested in building a strong accountability partnership, find a willing partner and experiment. The journey is fulfilling.
Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches. Do I qualify?
