Training Industry Magazine - May/June 2019 - 47

When thinking about your peer who
appears to be upset about the change,
consider the following possibilities.
Maybe they have been through this
type of situation before and had a
negative experience. Maybe the details
regarding the change are not specific
enough, and they are tired of feeling left
out of decision-making conversations.
Both reasons could be why your peer is
resistant to the change.
Next, let's consider the situation in which
you are bothered by your supervisor
adding another member to your team
without your consideration - you
likely had the following concerns: Does
your supervisor think you cannot be
successful with your current team? Does
your supervisor think you are not doing
a good job? Why wouldn't the supervisor
have given you a heads up?
We could develop any number of
responses to these two scenarios.
However, the moral of the story is that
we don't know why someone reacts
the way they do in any given situation.
We can assume, but ultimately, we
don't have fac ts to suppor t such
assumptions. Leveraging our viewpoints
in any situation allows us to remain
unbiased and non-judgmental toward
others during difficult situations in the
workplace. We must remain mindful that
there may be a reason we are not aware
of that is causing someone's negative
response to the situation at hand.
So, when applying this belief to our
teams, think about a time when your
perception of a situation was wrong.
Have you ever had one of those moments
where you played out a scenario in
your head negatively, only to realize
the experience was a positive one?
Or, have you found yourself coming
up with multiple rebuttals to push
back something you were expecting to
happen, but never occurred? I believe
this is why many of us struggle with

accountability discussions. We worry
that the outcome will be negative - so,
instead of developing talking points,
we develop excuses to not to have the
discussion and end up justifying the
behavior we needed to discuss in the
first place.

CHANGING OUR PERCEPTION
So, how do we overcome these thoughts,
and how do we not let past negative
experiences get in the way of our
application of accountability?
First, we must accept that we cannot
change the past. If someone had a
negative experience in the past, that
is out of our control. What we can do,
however, is acknowledge that experience.
If we are made aware of people's past
experiences, we can focus on creating
positive experiences moving forward
which will, hopefully, result in a positive
perception shift.
Next, we must be intentional in allowing
individuals the opportunity to share
their insights regarding how they
perceived a certain situation or action.
One of my favorite resources on
the topic of accountability is "Crucial
Accountability," a book by VitalSmarts.
One of the tools the book mentions
is called "The Conversation Planner."
This tool uses the following format to
structure accountability discussions:
Describe the Gap: Start by sharing what
was expected versus what was observed.
Expected: "My understanding was that
you were going to
."
Observed: "Instead, you

End with a question: "What happened?"
"How do you see it?"
Then, once we have the proposed
accountability conversation, we need to

allow that experience to end. Meaning,
we need to move on and not bring up
the incident unless it is appropriate
to do so. This is one of the key ways
we can help change the perception of
accountability discussions.

Holding someone
accountable is a
good thing.
If you have ever made a mistake and
were called out for that mistake, I would
imagine you would want people to
drop it and move on. The same feeling
applies for accountability discussions.
Please note, I am not saying that once an
accountability discussion is completed
we must forget about it. Rather, it is
important that we move on and allow
the employee the opportunity to learn
from their past behaviors and implement
necessary changes moving forward. If
the behavior continues, however, then
we can bring it to attention during
another discussion.

UNDERSTANDING
EXPECTATIONS
Bringing accountability into teams is
something you can do right away. There
is no need to wait for the next evaluation
period. One of the most impor tant
items needed to start this process is
simple: expectations.
One of the most common reasons
for becoming frustrated is because
our expectations are not being met.
Think about the previous examples
mentioned, and then think about a time
when you were frustrated at work. Why
were you frustrated? You likely had one
of the following answers:

T RAIN IN G I N DU STR Y M AGAZ INE - UNDERSTANDING YOUR LEARNERS 20 1 9 I WWW. T RAI NINGINDU S T RY . C OM/ MAGAZ I NE

| 47

https://www.vitalsmarts.com/crucial-accountability-training/ https://www.trainingindustry.com/magazine

Training Industry Magazine - May/June 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Training Industry Magazine - May/June 2019