Some research has shown that accountability can have a profound impact on your ability to follow through with a commitment. What exactly does it mean to have accountability and how can we build cultures that support accountability while also retaining empathy? My name is Jonathan Cottrell and you're listening to Developer Tea. My goal on the show is to help driven developers like you find clarity, perspective, and purpose in their careers. What exactly does it mean to have accountability? Well, at the most basic level, accountability is about letting another person know whatever your commitment is, whatever the measurement is, measurement is an important word in that, that you want to step up and do something. What does it mean to have accountability? Well, at the most basic level, accountability is about letting another person know whatever your commitment is, whatever the measurement is, measurement is an important word in that, that you want to step up and do something. Whatever your commitment is, at the most basic level, having accountability means someone else, either on your team or your manager or maybe somebody entirely off of your team, has some visibility into what you're doing and what you said you would do. But effective accountability goes beyond just observability and visibility into those measurements. Effective accountability includes some kind of accountability. Effective accountability includes some kind of reckoning event. And when we say reckoning, it sounds scary and often, unfortunately, accountability ends up feeling scary too. Because when we are held accountable, it's very clear what the gap is between what we did and what we said we would do. And this is one of the reasons it can be quite effective. When we can clearly see the gap between what we said we would do and what we actually did. Well, we have some more questions to answer. What exactly caused us to have that gap? This can be scary because people don't like to not follow through with commitments just at a psychological level. But we also can add to that fear in a work environment by hinting a promotion off of whether or not you met the things that you said you were going to meet, the things you committed to. So how can we... How can we create effective accountability systems? We've already talked about some of it. One is the observability aspect. The second is the reckoning moment or that meeting where you talk with that person who's holding you accountable. And you talk about, you know, you kind of have a postmortem of where you are so far on that measurement of accountability. But there's more to it than that. How can we create accountable cultures that are also supporting people? And are beacons of empathy for the people who are members of those cultures? That's what we're going to talk about right after we talk about today's sponsor, Vetteri. 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That's Vetteri.com slash DeveloperT. Thanks again to Vetteri for sponsoring today's episode of DeveloperT. So how do we create systems of accountability? That maintain empathy in a given culture? This isn't easy to do because at a fundamental level, accountability is often about finding flaws. But this is one place where we can improve the effectiveness of accountability by investing in systems that not only look for flaws, but also celebrate strengths. So when you meet with your whatever accountability partner, if you want to call it that, with your manager, with a coworker, whoever you are holding accountable, or whoever is holding you accountable, part of the process should be explicitly looking at the places where you have succeeded. This can be a little bit difficult to do because, again, our concept of accountability is to look at the gap between where we are and where we wanted to be. And if we have sufficiently closed that gap, then we kind of ignore those successes. But it's important to focus on those successes because focusing on strengths encourages positive feedback. Many studies show that positive feedback is as effective, if not more effective, than negative feedback. Additionally, as we create systems of accountability, we have to remember that the person is not represented by the metric. What does this mean? Well, it means that when you look at the things that you are measuring as a part of your work, as part of your accountability process, you need to recognize that there could be a lot of various ways that that measurement won't add up. A lot of our assumptions about what causes a gap in that measurement between what was committed to and what was actually executed, a lot of those causes that we intuitively assume are wrong. For example, it's easy to assume that someone who didn't meet a deadline didn't work hard enough, or they were distracted. These are intuitive understandings. But the reality is almost always more complex. And so we should treat these meetings not as a moment to focus on, you know, whether or not that person was being lazy, or if they were distracted, but instead, focus on learning. The heuristic you want to pay attention to here, You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone. you may find yourself bringing your producerij At any moment, you may find yourself bringing your producerij At any moment, you may find yourself bringing your producerij At any moment, you may find yourself bringing your producerij At any moment, you may find yourself bringing your producerij At any moment, you may find yourself bringing your producerij At any moment, you may find yourself bringing your producerij to close the gap. We have to avoid the toxic byproduct of shame. When holding someone accountable, always look for the opportunities rather than the judgments. Think about that for a moment. If you are a manager and you're holding someone accountable to a particular standard of quality, well it's important to recognize that the new work that they do, if it is high quality, is an opportunity. Rather than focusing on the previous behavior and trying to find some punitive angle on that behavior, instead focus on the opportunity that is presented for the future. How can we seize that opportunity in the most effective way? That should be the goal of your conversations around accountability. you!!!!