Does this story sound familiar?

Daniel, a young manager that I coached, frequently found himself frustrated that his team was not delivering projects on a deadline. He didn’t know how to fix it and often used a repertoire of different tactics to try to combat it.

It took a while to uncover what was happening. However, it became apparent after digging into multiple examples that every time one of his team members came to him with a setback, Daniel validated the individual’s reasoning.

When I asked about his approach, Daniel felt he was being empathetic – a key trait for successful leaders. It wasn’t that long ago that Daniel was standing in their shoes.

When Daniel listened to his team members, he understood the reasoning behind their comments. There’s truth to the excuses. He found himself saying things like, “Oh, I know the budget isn’t where it should be.” Or “Oh, I understand we do have a lot of projects on the table.”

His frustration lies in the fact that while the excuses keep coming, the results stay the same.

Things aren’t getting done on time. Accountability is missing.

Even if this story doesn’t feel familiar, your organization may still lack true accountability if it’s struggling with these common symptoms:

• Low employee morale
• Unclear priorities
• Declining engagement
• Ineffective execution
• Trust erosion
• Higher turnover

Creating accountability is difficult. And it is a leader’s job. It is the leader’s responsibility to embrace the mindset: GIVEN my current reality what DO I need to do to create the results, the career, the life that I want.

When the managers have that mentality, it trickles down and is spread throughout the team.

Common Accountability Pitfalls

Below are three common pitfalls we often witness with leaders and teams to create ACCOUNTABILITY and manager best practices to overcome them:

1. Managers aren’t trained to have the conversations. 

Many people leaders are not properly trained to respond to their direct reports’ excuses or lack of accountability. Because you can’t mandate accountability, leaders must know how to create an environment where people choose accountability, where they choose to come to a problem with solutions rather than excuses.

Now, imagine if Daniel started to have conversations with his team members that were skilled and structured. One critical tool used in Fierce Accountability is to reframe the excuse.

Instead of saying, “OK.” Daniel asked, “Given that the budget isn’t where it should be or given that we do have a lot going on, what can you do?” Instead of acquiescing to excuses, and saying “well, okay, I hear you,” the manager needs to say “I hear you AND what can you do about it?”

The manager must be able to hold the space and have the skillful conversation to move the person to action. This comes with practice and feedback. Daniel started to have different conversations, and the results did change.

2. Managers want to be liked.

Does your culture frequently recognize the “most liked” individuals? Or does your culture recognize the “biggest driver of results”? We often work with organizations that have “terminal niceness,” something we frequently call a Culture of Nice.

There is so much fear around stepping on someone’s toes or holding others to specific standards, that all of the conversations become superficial. How balanced are those two spectrums?

Take a long look at your performance management process. Evaluate how you are rewarding behaviors.

If managers who get the most gold stars on dimensions that can be tied to “popularity” instead of driving results, you may need to adjust some of your goals and processes. Be intentional with what you expect and reward.

3. Managers underestimate their role in building accountability.

We find that managers, especially young managers, are quick to build a process or want to implement a system of working before addressing the root cause issues of why accountability doesn’t exist. Although it may be nice to set up a system or methodology and then coast for a while, the harsh reality is that this is not the case.

Managers play a key role in the ongoing conversation. They can not just point to systems and processes to solve this challenge. Continuing with direct one-to-ones and making sure that you are addressing anything that arises is key.

Lack of accountability quickly becomes a slippery slope. Think about many of the disasters in this past decade from the financial crisis to auto and cellular phone recalls.

Once knowledge of what has really happened gets to the press, employees come from all facets of the organization sharing how the behavior, fraud, whatever it may be, was known by some. Or that the top person didn’t do anything about it. You may be inclined in these situations to point fingers at one person in particular.

However, if your leaders’ inclination is to say that they can’t have accountability because your culture does not have it, or your top leaders don’t have it, then stop them right there.

Share this blog. And remind them: Culture doesn’t live outside of you. That’s not how it works. You are the culture. You choose what it looks like every day. You choose it in the conversations you have. And even more so if you lead people, you model and reinforce those choices each time you interact with others.

If accountability is an issue in your organization, do not just wait for something to shift. Daniel started to have different conversations with his team, and in turn, there were different results. His team members came with more solutions and ownership over time.

These changes do not happen overnight. You must create a plan to equip people with the skills and practice they need to really believe and move the mission forward.

And watch out for those common pitfalls – some are easier to see than others.

The art of having a great conversation seems to be lacking today. Blame it on technology, blame it on divisive politics, blame on the rain if you’re a Milli Vanilli fan and that makes you feel better. But much like chivalry which I don’t believe it’s dead, I just think it’s gone into hibernation; it could use a little prompting to come back into full force. 

Let’s face it, communication has always had its challenges from cave drawings to grunts, you know there was always someone on the other end to misinterpret the original meaning. I’m sure Ugh’s buffalo wall painting was mistaken for a mammoth and a heated debate ensued. 

Miscommunication has been a constant through-line since the beginning of mankind. Take the #1 bestselling book in the world, the Bible. It has been translated over and over again for centuries, from its original Aramaic into Greek and Latin and then into dozens upon dozens of other languages. Let’s not forget the additional influence of scholars, clergy, and kings who had the authority to make changes as they saw fit making the Bible essentially the longest-running game of “Telephone” ever!

Fast-forward to today where even in the 21st century with all the multiple modern ways we have to communicate it is easy to misinterpret someone’s email or text because without hearing the other person’s tone or inflection; even a missed comma all meaning can go to hell in a handbasket. And I’d be remiss to discount how the use of CAPS can tarnish a relationship.

So, you’d think we could easily correct this giant margin of error with face-to-face interaction but that has become a challenge in and of itself for multiple reasons. To list a few, we’re: distracted, anxious, fearful, arrogant, harried, scared, impatient, or D- All of the Above. Can you remember the last time you turned on any “news channel” to see people simply sharing, instead of shouting their opinions and ideas at one another as if the louder they are the more the person will understand them? 

Sometimes it’s like watching my Aunt Suzy Belle, bless her heart, speak louder when I introduced her to my seeing-impaired friend. It is fascinating and comical how people honestly think being loud and repetitive is how they will sway the opinions of others. The irony of course is they are barely listening to the other person and forget about the poor moderator if there is one. 

The Best Ways to Have Better Communication

Everyone wants to be heard more than they seem to want to listen. And this isn’t just the case on TV, it’s happening at work, in our families, with our friends and certainly on social media. 

This is why I want to share 10 ways to help you get GREAT CONVERSATION back into your life (‘cause I know you miss it.)

1. Take a Step Back

Or in laymen’s terms, chill for a second. Put yourself in a self-imposed mental timeout for a few moments to calm down and reflect on what is really happening in the conversation. The benefits will be far outweighing any discomfort having to pause will cause you. Have you ever been in a heated argument with someone only to realize at the conclusion you were both saying the same thing? (By the way, this is a regular thing in marriage) Well, taking a step back allows you to get to that place without having exerted all that unnecessary energy. 

2. Be Present

Actually pay attention to what the other person is saying. It’s easy to daydream and or think ahead. Don’t cheat yourself or them. RIGHT NOW is a gift that’s why they call it the present. If you don’t know how to connect to the present, try going zen for a moment or think about yoga. A quick exercise is to take a few deep breaths…in and out; and your breath will refocus you on the here and now.

3. Look the Other Person in the Eyes. 

Many ancient cultures say the eyes are the window to the soul for a reason. You can see more and understand more from looking into people’s eyes and watching their facial expressions than from their words sometimes. What’s really cool is there is actual science behind it as well.

4. Put Away Your Devices  

Have you ever been out to lunch or dinner with a friend, colleague, or significant other and they are constantly checking their phone? How infuriating is that?! Put your technology away (not face down on the table- actually away in a pocket or bag) and pretend it’s 1990 and have a face to face conversation with no other distractions.

5. Don’t Listen to Respond, Listen to Hear

This is called Active Listening and it is crucial to having a great conversation. If you are having issues because you think more about what you are going to respond with instead of what the person is trying to say, you are NOT an active listener. One great way to participate in active listening is to repeat back what was just said. Try it and see how much a) the person appreciates feeling heard and b) how much better your exchange will be. A fun little FYI – the same letters that make up the word LISTEN also spell SILENT. Deep, right?!

6. Ask Questions 

Enhance the conversation and get more out of the dialogue with some good questions. Don’t ask a question that will be met with a one-word answer, turn the questions into a conversation about the topic at hand.

7. Remember What it Feels Like to be Ignored 

Whether it happened to you as a child, in a group of friends, or at a brainstorming meeting last week. It doesn’t feel good. So, remember to give the courtesy of giving your time and attention to the person who is speaking to you. That’s really more manners than anything else.

8. Check Your Watch and Environment

Make sure you have time for a conversation, this is more than a tweet or post; it’s live and in-person so you need at least 5-10 minutes. If you don’t have the time, reschedule for when you do. Also, look around at your environment, is this an ideal place to speak? Steer clear of the loud places where you can barely hear or be heard. Source out a conducive place to converse. Think coffee shop off the beaten path or even an outdoor space is ideal, maybe sign up for a conference room just to ensure that quality time is quality. It will be worth it in the long run and the conversation will go over much smoother with a few extra minutes being in the right place.

9. Find a Common Ground

If you should find yourself in a conflict or with seriously contrasting views, what is it that you can both/all agree on? Connect with your shared values and touch on those for a bit.

10. Smile

This may sound so silly and simple, but it works. Smiles are inviting. When done sincerely and genuinely a smile will immediately put people on the receiving end of at ease. Smiling also sends subliminal messages to your own brain that “You’ve GOT this!”. It’s truly one of the easiest things to do to get people to open up and share.

This post was written by Fierce guest writer, Karith Foster. For nearly two decades, author, speaker, and humorist Karith Foster has taken her passion for entertaining and critical thinking nationwide — from the airwaves to organizations, from universities to corporations, creating a seismic shift in mindsets and revolutionizing the way we address issues of diversity and leadership.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) has become a hot topic in 2020.

I care deeply about diversity, and as a Mexican-American woman, diversity isn’t just a topic of discussion for me, I have experienced real discrimination and I have also benefited greatly from real inclusivity.

Something I hear a lot from our clients is that diversity is easy to measure so it gets a lot of attention. You can report out how much you’ve increased your race, gender, or LGBTQ+ presence, however, it’s a lot harder to measure how effective people are at including those individuals once inside the organization.

Bigger than this, leveraging diversity of thought pushes us all beyond our pre-conceived notions and unconscious bias and forces us to surround ourselves with individuals not like us. It’s the leveraging of diversity and how I hope to be more inclusive in 2020 that I want to tackle today in this blog.

The Importance of Context in Inclusion Efforts

I’ll start with my context. I’m a sales leader and for my world, inclusion is not just our internal company, but also how we are leveraging diversity with our clients.

In our Fierce work, our Third Transformational Idea is, “All conversations are with myself, and sometimes they include other people”. To me, inclusivity starts with this idea.

We have to recognize that we are moving through the world with our own context and that the story inside our head is just that, it’s ours! The person we talk to most throughout the day is ourselves, and so the work starts with us examining what is the substance of that conversation.

As a leader, a conversation I have often with myself is, “who should I share my ideas and the decisions I need to make with?” It looks something like: “I have a new idea/big decision to make, let me talk to my go-to-person (enter name here)”.

Harmless enough, except you have to ask yourself, why is that person always who you go to with your great ideas or feedback on big decisions? Once you move to execution, are they also who you put on the project, thus giving them advantage or exposure in the company?

What would it look like if you had the same thought and instead it went like: “I have a new idea/big decision to make, let me talk to my go-to-person and also two other people I NEVER go to”.

That could be a new hire, someone in a different department, someone of a different race, gender, or orientation.

An example for me right now is around the Sales Onboarding Program myself and my sales leaders are building. My typical context would be that I should go to my more tenure salespeople to help with what should be covered during this period of the ramp.

I agree with this, but I lose out on being more inclusive if I don’t in fact heavily include my most recently ramped reps and the reps ramping right now. It might feel weird to ask the people who are less than 30 days into your organization what do they need to know, but here’s the thing — you’ll never get this time back, these fresh eyes to show you what you might be missing.

Why Inclusion Best Practices Start With You

This leads me to our Second Transformational Idea, “The Conversation is the Relationship”. By this logic, if you want more inclusive relationships and thus a more inclusive culture, you have to start with inclusivity in the conversation.

So what do inclusive conversations look like? A simple place to start is to ask more questions. If you audited your relationships as a people leader, how often are you asking follow up questions or asking your team to say more about an idea?

How often do you do this with someone who is obviously not like you – either in age, race, or gender? Or sometimes even more problematic, how often do you ask follow-up questions of someone who THINKS differently than you?

On my team, I have ages ranging from Baby Boomers to Millenials. As an older millennial myself, I find myself in the middle of different points of view, styles of working, and expectations. To create a sales culture that is inclusive, I try to always ask the follow-up questions: “say more about that” or “tell me more” when I get a competing reality.

This practice gives me time to listen and learn, as well as creating a culture of feeling included. On more than one occasion, I have had to be honest and share my bias as I find this easier to be vulnerable. When I have asked questions, I have learned more and am usually already thinking about how to take in this other person’s point of view.

This brings me to our final tip, our First Transformations Idea, “Our lives succeed or fail, gradually then suddenly, one conversation at a time”. Having more inclusive conversations and thus relationships and culture start with this idea of one conversation at a time.

Getting out of your comfort zone, challenging yourself, listening more and asking more questions can happen with every conversation with yourself and then with others.

You have the power to start this immediately. No big initiative or process needed – just practice and do the work starting with you.

At Fierce, we often break up these big ideas by committing to one small practice a day. That gradually then suddenly has a compounding effect that has you reaching your goal of being a more inclusive leader.

For me, this month I am focusing on asking for at least two points of view that are different than mine or come from someone different than me, which can look a lot of different ways. How do you create inclusive cultures at your organization? Find us on your social network of choice and let us know!

The problem – All that noise.

I grew up one of four children, all of whom were born on the same day at approximately the same time. I am a quadruplet.

Now, as cool as that sounds (and it was a blast growing up) if you think about it, I have been competing for “position” in this family since I was in the womb. I had three other people who all wanted to literally get out ahead of me, before we ever took our first breath.

Fast forward to when we were 7, and I was still competing — not for birth order, but for a voice. I wanted to be seen, I wanted to be heard and recognized as an individual, not just one of four.

And boy, did I work for it — I grew into quite the little entertainer. I sang, I put on shows in the living room, anything I could do to stand out and get my voice heard. It worked for a while.

Saying “No” To the Noise

Over the years, it seemed the decibel level in the family just kept increasing. With four growing kids, someone was always trying to get out ahead, have a bigger voice, gain more recognition from Mom and Dad. And with the increased noise in the system, it meant I had to be louder too. (sigh)

It was around the age of 10 that I started to retreat on a regular basis to my bedroom and shut the door.

I remember my Mom asking me, “Are you feeling okay? You are awfully quiet.” She grew concerned. Granted, it was a shift from the “norm” in our family. Quiet was something we didn’t do very well.

Clearly, from my Mom’s reaction, quiet meant something was wrong. In reality, I had just made a simple decision to say “no” to all of the noise. I shut out the need to compete and made space to focus on my own thoughts, process my day, and get to know my inner voice. I made space to breathe!

This need for silence and solitude is something I have held onto into my adulthood and I have brought it into my day-to-day business life. While it is incredibly important to me, I have not found the same value of silence being echoed in the greater business community.

The Damage of Missing Silence in Business

As a culture, we don’t do very well with silence. We are taught to literally “speak up!” — those people that do, actually brought their brains to work. Those who are quiet, must have checked out for the day.

We are taught to keep up with the noise of email, IMs, texts, phone calls — the busier we are the harder we must be working…(it is never ending). Our days are interrupted (frequently) by rings, buzzes, and dings notifying us that someone or something needs our attention NOW.

So what’s the big deal? Isn’t all that noise beneficial, isn’t it helping us get the work done? Not really…

When I was a kid and didn’t get my precious quiet time, I can tell you — I got cranky! I was less productive, more agitated, easier to trigger, and usually got into some sort of trouble. I was louder in a not-so-helpful way. I wasn’t “me”.

Research has proven that I am not alone. It has been determined that too much noise raises cortisol, heart rate, and blood pressure. It can contribute to memory loss and insomnia. It raises our collective anxiety levels. It depletes our creativity, impedes productivity, and hinders good decision-making.

To make matters worse, research also shows that too much “technology noise” (emails, texts, general screen time) can lead to mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety, a decrease in communication skills, and other health ramifications such as insomnia and back, neck and eye strain.

Whether the noise we are dealing with is literal sound or it is coming at us from our laptops or handheld devices, that noise is hurting us! Something needs to change.

So, what would happen if you built more silence into your day? What if you stopped talking long enough to actually hear yourself think? Or turned off the cell phone, shut the laptop, and marinated in your own thoughts for a while?

For some of you, the permission of unplugging for minutes or hours feels like a gift — a mini-vacation from the day. For others, I can almost hear you running away from this blog post. But don’t give up on me just yet.

Consider this: studies have shown that silence can regenerate brain cells. In fact, even a few minutes a day of quiet can help regulate your cortisol, heart rate, and blood pressure.

In addition to your physical well-being, there has been some fascinating research around the importance of silence to learning, to our performance, and even what solitude does for the mind and creativity.

To take it even further, there are plenty of leaders who have talked about the power of “white space” in their own lives/careers. By his own estimate, Warren Buffet has spent 80 percent of his career reading and thinking. He made it a priority to clear his calendar and spend the majority of his time in thought…in a way, you could say silence built the Warren Buffet we know today. Powerful stuff, right?

At this point I have several of you thinking, “Okay, so silence is important. But I have no time for that!”

(Ahh, but can you really afford not to?)

How to build Silence into Your Workday

For those of you wanting to know how you can build silence into your day-to-day, and still keep up the pace that is demanded of you, here are a few tips that may help:

1. Block out time in your calendar to reflect.

It works for Warren Buffet! Our calendars are not just for meetings with other people. I once had a leader say to me “you shouldn’t use your outlook calendar to block out working or thinking time.”

Hog wash! That is precisely how I use my calendar. To organize all of my time, prioritize what needs to get done, and create the space within which to do it. And it works.

This doesn’t mean block off days or weeks on end of “no meetings”. But I am giving you permission to place a 30 minute, 1 hour, 2 hour “HOLD – DO NOT SCHEDULE OVER” block of time in your schedule per week. (My hope is you work this into a daily practice, but we can start small.) Schedule it into your calendar and don’t compromise this time.

2. Enjoy a conversation with yourself.

During that lovely block of time that you have no meetings, sit with your own thoughts (and absolutely no agenda). Meditate, talk a long walk, plan a personal retreat. Journal or “flush your thinking.”

My cousin calls it “cleaning out the basement,” I love that. What are those deep, collective gems of thought that you haven’t allowed to surface? Put them on paper, see where they go. What brilliant idea is waiting to make an appearance?

3. Let silence do the heavy lifting.

Even in the middle of a conversation. You don’t need your schedule to be void of meetings and interactions to leverage silence. What might happen in your meetings or one-on-one conversations if you said less, listened more, and provided time to think about what has — and has not  — been said?

Insight occurs in the space between words. Important conversations require moments of silence during which we can reflect on what someone has said, and consider our responses, before opening our mouths.

This does not mean we adopt the silence of non-participation, of avoiding topics that are uncomfortable. It means that when a question is asked, we give ourselves and others time to reflect and respond.

How do you do this? Practice the 10 second rule  — When you ask for input or ask a question, count to 10 (slowly) before jumping in with your own thoughts and ideas or to answer your own question, giving others time to process.

Take notice of how this feels the first few times you do it  — how strong is your need to continue talking? What is the impact of creating more space/silence in your conversations?

Noise can be deafening and detrimental to our health, our relationships and our productivity. So pay attention to your own behavior. Are you speaking just to hear yourself speak? Are you getting sucked into the addiction of all of that technology?

Where can you leverage more silence in your day, so the next thing out of your mouth (or typed onto the screen) is truly meaningful?

Confronting someone is scary. It can be even scarier to confront your boss. Often the anxiety you feel is strong enough to make you want to bury your head in the sand, no matter what the issue.

It’s also very understandable to be afraid of confronting your boss. If the conversation goes awry, you may worry that it will put your job at stake. This is, of course, a worst-case scenario. From our experience here at Fierce, we can honestly tell you that this outcome is incredibly rare. More often than not, confrontation conversations lead to positive change.

The truth is, how receptive they are to the conversation plays into how successful they will be as a leader and the kind of culture they want to create for the company. There is a lot at stake for everyone — not just you.

Despite the intimidation you may feel, avoiding confronting your boss can turn an otherwise straightforward conversation into something bigger and more complex.

For example, in a team meeting, your boss makes a comment about your work that you think is off-base. Afterward, you think: is this what my boss really thinks of me?

This is when you risk spiraling — where your mind conjures up realities that most likely aren’t true. That mindset never leads to a positive outcome.

The next day when he or she walks by you in the hall without smiling, you begin to wonder if you’re a hop, skip, and a jump away from being fired. You now want to avoid your boss at all costs in hopes that his or her feelings towards you will work themselves out.

Soon a low-grade resentment begins to breed toward this person, and every interaction you have with them only strengthens your context that they’re unhappy with you. And guess what? You may find yourself less and less happy with them, and less and less happy at work.

Having a confrontation conversation allows you the opportunity to see the whole truth, and not just your own. You may discover that what you thought you heard was a misinterpretation or an incorrect assumption. You could also learn something you didn’t know about your performance and gain more insight into how you can improve. From there, you can take the appropriate next steps and move forward on solid ground.

Does knowing this make it less scary? No.

Does it make it necessary so you can be happy and engaged at work? Yes.

Knowing how to prepare and navigate these conversations skillfully can make all the difference in the outcome.

To help take away some of the anxiety, here are three simple steps to prepare:

Step 1: Know Your Issue

In a FIERCE CONFRONTATION, the first step in preparing to confront anyone is to name the issue for yourself. This is even more critical when confronting a leader. Be specific. If you take the above example, the real issue is the leader’s comment in the meeting. Simply saying, “I want to talk with you about the effect your comment at the team meeting today had on me” is a great way to start the conversation. Simple, straightforward, and to the point! If you’ve already begun to spiral, leave those thoughts out of the conversation. Just focus on what happened in reality.

Step 2: Schedule a Time

Leaders are busy. It’s not uncommon that throughout the day they’re pulled in many different directions. Catching them off-guard could cause an emotion from another issue they’re dealing with to seep into your conversation. You deserve your leader’s full attention. To ensure the conversation is a success, make it a priority for both of you, and schedule a meeting so they can anticipate it and show up fully present.

Step 3: Prepare Yourself

Confrontation conversations aren’t meant to be “versations:” a conversation that lacks the Latin root word “con,” which means “with,” creating a one-sided speech. In other words, this is not an opportunity to go in and rail against your leader and expect them to just sit there and listen. Invite them to respond. The point is to learn more about their side and to clarify whether there is a bigger issue. And if so, determine some next steps to resolve it. Expressing your desire to find a solution can also help reduce anxiety and get both of you on the same page.

To lessen the scare factor even further, begin to examine how you may have contributed to the situation. This is usually easier to do once you’ve heard their perspective. Ask yourself: how have I contributed to the issue? How do I feel about it? Take notes. This will help you stay clear when you begin to hear their side and can help show you where you need to shift in order to move forward on a positive note.

And if you’re a leader, prepare to be confronted.

How receptive you are to your employees and their concerns is the most imperative part of leading successfully, building emotional capital, and creating a positive workplace culture. Enter these conversations with curiosity and set an intention to prioritize the relationship.

Being confronted can present an opportunity to learn about how your own communication is perceived, giving you an opportunity to course correct and learn more about the needs of individuals on your team.

The reality is there is no trivial comment you can make as a leader. Ambiguous comments about work or performance can create tension in the relationship and are worthy of a confrontation conversation.

If you’re having an issue with someone in a position of leadership, use these three steps to help empower yourself to take responsibility for your own happiness at work.