Accountability Partners 3-2-1

Last time I brought up for consideration the subject of adding an accountability partner in addition to an accountability group to aid in achieving goals. This time let’s look at a way to keep the phone calls with your accountability partner short and on target. I like 15 minute phone calls... anything more and my ear starts to hurt, and I have other calls to make. Remember the goal of these phone calls with your accountability partner is to keep you on task toward fulfilling your goals. If you take five minutes and your accountability partner takes five minutes, then with a little chit-chat you’ll be done in 15 minutes.  

Keeping to 3-2-1 as a model will help you stay on schedule.

   3 - Accomplishments

   2 - Goals

   1 - More thing

 

Just like accountability groups the focus is on accomplishments from the last phone call and goals for next time. I like starting with what I accomplished; this helps keep things on a positive note. Tell your accountability partner what top three things you’ve accomplished. Even if you accomplished ten things of note, mention three. This is a quick report and you don’t want to use up your whole five minutes.

After accomplishments move on to your top two goals for today. Saying your goal, or the activity to bring about that goal, out loud to someone has real power to energize your day. Normally, you’ll have more than two things you want or need to accomplish that day, but stating the top two creates clarity in your day. This is also motivating for those things you are less than excited get started on. One of my least favorite, but most important tasks every day is 10 to 15 phone calls to contacts and prospects.

Then move on to one more thing.  This can really be anything you want your accountability partner to be aware of. I might mention something I’m excited about or grateful for. “I have a phone call today with Wendy and I’m looking forward to the progress she is making on her project.” After this one more thing, it’s time for your accountability partner to talk and for you to listen.

After your accountability partner is finished, it’s good to confirm your next phone call or face to face meeting. If you’re doing this in coordination with an accountability group, then you’ll be prepared to report your weekly successes and accomplishments to the group. This will reinforce your activity and efforts with your accountability partner. REMEMBER: This is a tool not a time consuming activity so a little chit-chat to start and to end the session is fine but keep it short and simple

Accountability Groups & Accountability Partners

Back in 2003, when we first started to employ the concept of "Accountability Groups for Job Seekers" at the College of DuPage’s DEN program, we saw a dramatic shift in folks landing jobs. Having someone or a group to support the job seeker, helping them to hold themselves accountable really affected the participants’ activity and intensity in their job search. While we never quantifiably measured the effectiveness of these groups, it was apparent that folks, who had been in a job search limbo, began getting interviews and job offers.

In 2005 Orville Pearson published, The Unwritten Rules of the Highly Effective Job Search... where he describes a similar concept he calls "Job Search Work Teams." While not the exact same thing as "Accountability Groups," both possess an underlying principle that people are more effective when they have support and help motivating themselves to do things that are new, uncomfortable, or scary that need to be done. Left alone without support it is too easy for most of us to let ourselves off the hook, and rationalize reasons not to do something.

Not long ago, I met with a job seeker who mentioned to me that he was really working hard on his job search. I asked how he was able to do this and he told me that he was in three different accountability groups. I thought to myself that this went against a lot of what I teach regarding effective activity in a job search. As I drilled down he explained that before he joined the second and third groups, he only worked hard the day before the group met and often let himself off the hook until it became urgent to meet the objectives he’d set for the week. Sadly, he was giving up probably three hours a week in meetings when one meeting would have sufficed.

What he was really looking for was more accountability, more outside accountability. A few months before this meeting, I’d been pondering the idea of Accountability Partners to build on to the Accountability Group concept. Having a workout buddy that shows up every day to workout with you increases one’s compliance to do daily exercise. This same condition could work for job seekers, utilizing a daily 10 minute phone call with your "Job Search Partner."

In fact, this would work with anyone who needs to overcome some resistance in meeting a goal. Sales people, college students, small business owners and people doing their taxes could all benefit from having an "Accountability Partner."

I have used this concept a number of times in my life and my career to help me over the resistance, fear or inertia of doing unfamiliar or unpleasant activities. I suggest creating a bond or contract with another person with similar goals; partners who push each other forward, raise the bar and hold each other accountable will have a dramatic, positive effect in achieving your goals and desires.

Be on fire about your career

The news this week  had a story of not one, but two couch fires in the Chicagoland area. Holy smokes, how much time does someone have to sit on the couch to get it to combust? I actually don’t know the cause of the fires in the stories, but I hope these fires did not cause any additional financial burden for anyone suffering from job loss.

Activity in the job search means that you are out and about, talking and networking with people. Actually the job seeker needs to be on fire about finding a job. Meaning, you need to have a passion about your career, the opportunities and the abilities you bring to the job market.

After a job seeker has many weeks of looking for work under her belt, she starts to lose the expectation that she’ll find a job soon. Doubt starts to insert itself into the job seeker’s consciousness. Doubt can lead to negative thoughts and negative self-talk which start to feed on themselves and the job seeker can soon lose hope of ever finding gainful employment.

Back in 2009 I told the story of being as enthusiastic as a puppy dog when the doorbell rings. <Link> Keeping a positive attitude isn’t easy especially in a job search that seems to go on and on. But, I believe that one of the things that allows doubts to grow into depression is inactivity. Being a couch potato is one of the best ways to kill a job search. Focused activity leads to proficiency of your job search skills,  which leads to more network meetings, which leads to interviews, which leads to job offers.

Note the terminology focused activity: what do I mean by “focused activity?” Not all activity is productive and sometimes can be distracting the job seeker from meeting job search goals.  So, activity for activity’s sake can be counter productive and even destructive. When your activity is focused, it clearly enables you to achieve a short-term or long-term goal... getting you that much closer to landing the job.  

Be on fire about your job search, passionate about your next job and the future you’ll have. Don’t, however, let you the couch suck you into killing your job search and burn up your dreams.

New Year's Goals

It’s New Year’s time. Get those dusty old goals out and and polish them for the new year. While your friends are making New Year’s resolutions you can be setting goals and achieving success. How many people make New Year’s resolutions on January 1 and give them up by January 30th? Why? There are at least two reason for this. First, some people are not the structured goal setting type. Second, some folks only work with part of a plan to succeed.

In the first case, you may prefer to stay open to new information and be flexible when making decisions. Rigorous goal setting may be outside your mode or abilities. It doesn’t mean that you do not set goals, you have goals and attain those goals in a different way. In Myers-Briggs terminology you deal with the outside world as a “P” or perceptive person. The “P” folks out there prefer a, “...spontaneous way of life, and like to understand and adapt to the world rather than organize it.” That’s okay.

The second case presents others who set goals but forget to realize and keep in mind the benefits of achieving the goal. Or they don’t break down the big goal into smaller bites and set time lines. Or they don’t write down the goal and communicate it to people who might help.

There is more that goes into goals than just making a resolution. Goals need to be written down, shared, committed to a time line and tied to a benefit. Plus, each step or mini goal needs to be recognized, appreciated, and celebrated when it’s met. Often goals are made and written down, but then our daily activity doesn’t fit into meeting our goal.

Like my friend and chiropractor tells me, things work better when they are in alignment. That holds true for our physical body and our lives. This is the case for those of us who are more spontaneous in our goals and for those of us who find comfort in planning out the detailed steps in achieving our goals.

It’s New Years; may this year be happy, prosperous and successful for you.

Accountability Group or Support Group

   Recently I posted that most of the groups I observed were support groups rather than networking accountability groups. A few folks have asked me to define the difference.  As I thought about that question I asked myself what are the goals of the two groups? Each benefits its members. But each type of group has a different focus, tone and outcome.


Focus

   The principle focus of the accountability group is for its members to achieve a new job or new career, and to utilize the dynamics of a group to change something in ourselves in order to achieve the next step in our career. The support group is there to help someone through a transition. The support group is a safe place to talk about pain and fears and is focused on healing. 


Tone
   While accountability groups should also be as safe a place to talk about ideas and feelings, it is primarily a business meeting with goals, metrics and recognition. The tone of the meeting should be “what business do we need to get done?” The support group really doesn’t have an agenda except that everyone who has a need to heal and feel supported is heard. The hope is that those who feel supported can then feel stronger in the things they need to do for their transition. The support group is more warm and fuzzy without specific measurables. 


Outcome
   The outcome of the accountability group is that everyone finds the next job. Job transition is primarily a sales job and most people looking for work are not trained sales people nor are they prepared to overcome the rejection that comes as part of the sales process. Having a group to help its members focus on the mechanics of the job search via the power of positive peer pressure is the way of accountability groups.  The support group is about healing and having the energy to make the person go. A successful group will answer the question, “Does everyone in the group feel better now?” And hopefully the answer is yes. 

   Finally, both groups’ objectives are to help the members grow and change. So they are not mutually exclusive and one could be a member of either or of both groups because in the end they fulfill different needs.  If anyone in the Western Suburbs of Chicago is looking for a transition support group might I suggest St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Glen Ellyn, IL. They have an intimate group that meets on Wednesday Mornings.  Contact me if your are interested in St. Barnabas’ group or starting either a networking accountability group or a transitions support group.

Accountability Groups Findings

   Over the summer I did some observing of groups reporting to be accountability groups. This wasn’t  a long, controlled research project... I just went around to check out six different Networking Accountability Groups and I learned a lot.

   I met with six groups in Chicago’s western suburbs. The largest group had eight members and the smallest had three. (This group just had two members land job and hadn’t replaced them during the time of my visits.) The average size of a group was five.

   Only one of the meetings I attended began on time. Most of the groups had 100% attendance with phone calls to alert the group if someone was going to be absent. Most meetings lasted between an hour and 90 minutes. Most of the groups have been meeting for over a year with the newest group meeting for less that six months.
 
   Every group but the newest saw some level of success. One group measured and track members status and they had high turnover in their group. Turnover is defined as members who find full time regular or contract work and no longer meet with the group. AKA: Success!

   While these observations only produced anecdotal data, there are some conclusions that are somewhat obvious. Most of the groups I observed would more correctly be called “Support Groups” rather than accountability groups because they are run in a very relaxed manner. Most groups meeting are made up of people reporting their status in an ad hoc manner and many of the folks never mention to the group what their goals are for the next week.

Other observations:

• Groups focus on the meeting and not on one another’s accomplishments for the week
• Groups pass leads among one another which became the goal of the meeting
• All groups had a non elected but clear leader instead of the leadership role being shared
• Groups were relaxed without a formal agenda
• One group used the “St. Hubert’s Accountability Check List” by its members
• No group collected and shared accountability data with the group members

I would suggest the following for all groups.

1. Increase the level of commitment from members
2. Have a formal contract to help create a more “business like” atmosphere
3. Set meeting start & stop times and agenda
4. Focus on members’ activity and accomplishments in their job search
5. Select and use an “Accountability Check List” -- see Google Docs Forms
6. Collect and report on members activity and accomplishments using a spreadsheet

Be accountable and succeed!

In theory, all the members of the group are looking for full time work. They all have the same goal and in times of weakness the members need to count on the group to fill the role of the boss or customer holding the expectation that the member will deliver what was promised. It's kind of silly that human beings will quit on themselves but not quit on a commitment they made to a group or even one other person. This is the power of an accountability group to give it's members the motivation to do the hard work of job search. So when the group holds it members accountability in a safe and honest manner, everyone wins.

How do accountability groups hold you accountable?

   The short answer is that they don’t; you have to hold yourself accountable first. Accountability groups help its members hold themselves accountable. It’s important to know what the group can help you with. You need to know how to utilize the power of such a group.  The group can...


... offer support and comradeship during a difficult time
If you are a small business owner who doesn’t like sales or a job seeker looking for the next opportunity you are basically on your own. If you succeed or fail you have no one to answer to, except yourself. Frankly this is lonely.  It is difficult to do sales or a job search and experience rejection with no support system. If you have a group who is going through the same kind of experiences you feel less alone. And you can pump one another up from time to time. While you are still on your own, you not all alone.

... clarify your goals and help you to stay focused
When you are on your own as either a job seeker or as an entrepreneur you are alone. If you were working in a job with peers and colleagues around, you can bounce ideas off people. As a single force in the world, having a group to bounce ideas off of can help in qualifying and quantifying your goals. With an accountability group to check in with, a conflicting goal or action can be identified and put into check; allowing you to remain focused on key goals and actions. If a goal is too big and requires a mini goals to be identified a group can point this out to you.

... provide some motivation to meet goals
Many of us are too easy on ourselves and accept our own rationalizations without question. The accountability group is a place to announce your goals and then report your status. Telling someone makes the goal real. Putting a date to a goal gives it a sense of urgency. When you’ve communicated the goal with a date to a group you’re more motivated to make the goal happen. Most of us hate to tell someone that we didn’t do what we said we would do. Also when you don’t feel like doing what you need to, having a group to report to gives you a proper kick to do it anyway.

   With the support and backing of a group of people who have made a commitment to aid in each other’s success by holding one another accountability -- you can achieve you sales or job seeking goals. The commitment is key. Each member needs to commit to personal responsibility, to attend meetings regularly, to ask questions of the other group members--even tough questions, and to expect one another to do the same for you and the group.