July 9, 2025 • 37 mins
Is accountability a tool for growth or a weapon for blame? In this episode, Kevin is joined by Michael Timms to discuss the true meaning and power of accountability in leadership and how modeling accountability creates a ripple effect throughout an organization. Michael addresses the pitfalls of task-focused leadership and offers guidance on how to empower teams by shifting their attention toward outcomes. He also outlines three habits of personal accountability: 1. Don't Blame, 2. Look in the Mirror, 3. Engineer the Solution.
Listen For
00:00 Introduction
00:49 Live streaming invitation
01:10 Book plug – Flexible Leadership
02:00 Introducing Michael Timms
02:55 Michael joins the show
03:37 Michael’s leadership journey
05:50 Why focus on accountability
08:09 Accountability as blame vs. power
10:11 Definition of accountability
11:02 Accountability and leadership power
13:26 CEOs and accountability problems
14:00 Systems thinking and accountability
15:06 Accountability is about results
18:00 Leaders must focus on outcomes
19:06 Three habits of personal accountability
20:03 Habit 1: Don’t blame
21:24 Habit 2: Look in the mirror
23:08 Ask others for feedback
23:50 Habit 3: Engineer the solution
25:04 Story – deleted file and process fix
26:49 Systems thinking builds trust
27:52 Processes vs. empowerment
30:55 Recap of accountability habits
31:17 What if it really is someone else’s fault?
32:49 Modeling accountability builds trust
34:11 What Michael does for fun
34:50 What Michael is reading
35:41 Where to learn more about Michael
36:18 Closing remarks
Michael's Story: Michael Timms is the author of How Leaders Can Inspire Accountability. He is a TEDx speaker, leadership development consultant, author, and founder of Avail Leadership. He has empowered thousands of senior leaders to adopt powerful leadership habits and practices that drive measurable improvements in team performance, engagement, and results across organizations. Prior to forming his own consultancy, Michael was a consultant with Deloitte and an HR leader in the construction and manufacturing industries. Michael earned an M.B.A. from Utah State University. When Michael is not helping leaders improve their game, he enjoys spending time with his family and going on challenging outdoor adventures in remote wilderness locations. His most recent adventure was summiting an 18,871 ft (5,752 m) mountain in the Peruvian Andes.
This Episode is brought to you by...
Flexible Leadership is every leader’s guide to greater success in a world of increasing complexity and chaos.
Book Recommendations
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Sometimes I've
jokingly said that accountabilityis the longest four letter word
in the English language,and there is often truth in jest.
And yet, when we think aboutand create accountability
in the correct and most effective ways,it is not a four letter word.
It is a significant driver to our success.
(00:31):
Accountability is our conversation today.
And so welcome to another episodeof the Remarkable Leadership Podcast,
where we are helping leadersgrow personally and professionally
to lead more effectively, make a bigger,
positive difference for their teamsorganizations in the world.
If you are listening to us,you could have joined us.
(00:53):
Well, actually, in the futureyou could join us live.
And while we're on video,if you would like to do that,
you need to know when and whereto do that.
And the best way to do that isto join our Facebook or LinkedIn groups,
which are two of the platformswhere these things originally stream live.
Just go to remarkable podcast.com/facebookor a remarkable podcast.com/linkedin
(01:17):
to get all set up to get connectedto what we're doing, what's up and when.
These episodes originally simulcastlive stream.
I hope you will do that,and I hope that you will remember that.
Today's episode is brought to youby my latest book, Flexible Leadership.
Navigate Uncertaintyand Lead with Confidence.
It's timeto realize that styles can get in our way,
(01:41):
and that following our strengthsmight not always
be the best approach in a worldmore complex and uncertain than ever.
Leaders need a new perspective,a new set of tools
in order to create the results
that their organizations and team memberswant and need.
And that'swhat flexible leadership provide.
You can learn more and order your copyat remarkable podcast.com/flexible.
(02:05):
And having done all of our,
housekeeping and all of
our introducing, let me introduce the mostimportant part of today's episode.
And that is our guest.His name is Michael Timms.
He is a leadership developmentconsultant, author
and founder of Avail leadershipand has empowered thousands
of senior leaders to adopt powerfulleadership habits and practices that drive
(02:28):
measurable improvements in their teamperformance, engagement, and results.
His latest bookis How Leaders Can Inspire Accountability,
as promised that is the focusof our conversation today.
It's also the basis for his TEDx talk how?
Excuse me TEDx talkhow to claim Your Leadership power.
And you can look that upas you know how to do.
(02:50):
And with that,I will welcome Michael to the show.
Thanksgiving dinner sir.
Hey, I'm glad to be here.
Thanks very much for having me.
All the way from British Columbia.
Yeah.
When we're doing this virtually,I suppose that doesn't matter in a way.
And yet, therewe go, all the way from British Columbia.
So. What's a it's a connected world.
We're all we're all, we're all connected.
(03:12):
And so we've got someone here from Seattleand we've got,
and so welcome, Rob, and welcome,
Mark, see, for all of youthat I just said, if you wanted to join us
live, see, if you do
that gets get connected and signed upso you can do that in the future.
So what I want to start with, Michael, is
is a placeI start with many of our guests,
(03:34):
and that is for you to tell usa little bit more about your journey.
So obviously you didn't.
Well, I'mpresuming that you didn't wake up
when you were six years old and say,I'm going to be a leadership development.
Trainer and author coach,
tell us a little bit about how you end updoing this kind of work.
(03:57):
Sure.
If you go way back,
you was back in universitywhen, my parents gave me the book,
The Seven Habitsof Highly Effective People.
And I read that book and
and I was like, this is exactly what I do,what I want to do with my life.
And, and then I was like, well,how can I do that?
What do I how do I kind of changemy academic direction here?
And I, I focused in, in human resources,
(04:19):
got an MBA and specialized in HR and
and then did none of that in HR, like,I thought I was going to be doing
leadership development,organizational behavior
and know in HR is doing,you know, hiring, firing, training.
Actually not not very much training,but, policy things like that.
Anyways,
throughout my career in industry,my story might not be unlike
(04:43):
many of your viewers, which is my bossesgot progressively worse.
I ended my first boss was he'sa great guy, really cared about me.
And and I had five bosses in industryand each one got progressively worse.
And the last guy was just awful.
Super micromanager,
just destroyed my confidence.
And, and I remember feelingI remember thinking, man,
(05:07):
I don't want anybody to feel the waythat this guy is making me feel.
And that'swhen I decided to get back into,
my my love of leadership and,and helping organizations
teach people not just how to not be,you know, asshole bosses.
But how to actually, how to actuallybring out the best in other people.
(05:28):
How, you know, what what can I do asa, as a person in a position of authority
to actually help people, riseto their, to their,
greatest level and, and,and become their best selves, and in
so doing, you know, help the organizationachieve, achieve its goals.
So, so that that was kind ofhow I, how I got into to this.
(05:50):
And so one way to think about achievingthose things is through
that very long four letter wordthat I describe, accountability.
So do you want to say any morevery specifically about why
you and obviouslywe're talking about leadership
and your book titles, how leadersand then inspire accountability.
So obviously you talkedabout the leadership piece. Why account?
(06:11):
Why is accountability the focus ofthe book and much of your work?
Yeah, when I started,
consulting about ten years ago,I focused on succession planning.
And what many people don't knowis the very first step in succession
planning is to come up with a promotioncriteria.
So what is the criteria
by which we're going to promote peopleinto leadership positions?
(06:31):
Typically it's basically who's bent,who's the most technically competent,
who's been here the longest,which are not good predictors of.
Which are the wrong predictors.
Right. Exactly.
So what I would do is I'd meet with focusgroups and different organizations
and that I was working with and I would
and I would ask them,what are the leadership characteristics
that have led to specific positiveoutcomes in your organization?
(06:56):
And they would tell me storiesand we would connect the dots between
behavior, leadershipbehaviors and positive outcomes.
And you're not going to believewhat the number one
competency was that came up literally,I kid you not.
Like I did this dozens and dozensand dozens of focus groups.
Every single focus grouptalked about accountability
(07:16):
as being the most importantleadership competency.
And so I got really, really interestedin, accountability.
It wasn't just like it actually came upin a couple of different ways.
So, you know, people said,you know, it was it was leaders
who who demonstratedwho modeled accountability.
Right? That was that was
a key competency.
But another sort of relatedbut different is leaders
(07:39):
who actually help others be accountable.
And another one is how leaders can helpthe entire organization.
Like what?
What changes can you make tothe organization, to the structure,
to the processes to help
everybody get better results,which is what accountability is about.
We're talking about all those thingsas we go.
The I mean, just come back up and,you know, I didn't tell everybody.
(08:01):
I did not tell Michaelhow I was gonna introduce this.
I did not tell him that.I sometimes say accountability
is the longest four letter wordin English language.
Here's why I say that's true.
Or can be true
is that we we never pull the word upuntil there's a problem, right?
Right. I'm going to hold you accountable.
But what you're saying,both in the conversation
so far and in the book,is that it's ultimately about how,
(08:22):
as leaders,can we help people be accountable.
You just said,which is a totally different thing
than holding you accountablebecause you screwed up, right?
And that sort of thing.
So you want to comment on thatbefore we dive in any further?
Yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah.
And that that is a challenge. Well,
actually actually it was
the, the guy in charge of the Fedex,
(08:44):
when I did my TEDx talk, I wanted toto call to talk accountability.
He's like Michael, nobody,nobody wants to hear about accountability.
It's just,you know, going to put people to sleep.
But the reality is, is, you know,accountability is a positive thing
and gives you power to to get the rightresults for yourself and for other people.
(09:05):
But the challenges, as you pointed out,is that, you know,
the the way we useaccountability is as a weapon, right?
I'm going to hold you accountable.
Or when we hear it in the, in the newsmedia, it's, it's it's in that way.
It's it's, you know,that politician must be held accountable.
And really, what they're saying isthat politician is at fault.
They are to blameand they should be punished.
(09:26):
And so what we have doneeffectively as a society
is that we have turned the wordaccountability and used it as a euphemism
for what we're really talking about,which is blame and punishment,
which is ironicbecause blame is the absolute antithesis.
Of the opposite of 100%.
I found myself as I was reading the book,Michael says, nodding my head a lot.
(09:51):
But I also found thatthere's some things that you wrote
that you sayI'm almost exactly the same way I do.
So I don't know if that means,that both of us
need to learn something new, or we'rejust in an alignment that maybe both.
Beforewe go any further, I probably should say
ask you, like,what is your actual definition
of accountability?
(10:12):
Accountability is taking
ownership of results
and focusing on what you can do.
To improve future results.
So, hey, I'm going to ownwhatever my situation is.
I'm going to own it.
I'm not going to, you know, sit back andblame other people for for why I'm here.
Because that's not helpful.
(10:32):
And I'm going to focus my attention
on what I can do,not what you can do, not what you can do.
Not what the government can do,not what my boss can do.
But what can I do to improve mymy future outcomes?
So on page 30, in the book,I'm not going to make you
this is not a book report.
So I will read the quotethat I want you to comment on because
it's the transitioninto the rest of our conversation.
(10:54):
You say on page30, accountability is the fulcrum upon
which leadership is placed and on which
and which gives leadership its power.
Let me read it again.
Accountability is the fulcrum uponwhich leadership is placed
and which gives leadership its power.
What do you mean by that?
It was actually Stephen Coveywho introduced this idea
(11:17):
to me,that leadership is the ultimate lever.
You know,
you know, give me a lever long enoughand I can and I can move the world.
Right. And leadership is that lever.
But, but a lever to be effective,it needs a fulcrum.
And so you place that leveron this fulcrum, and,
(11:38):
the challengeis, is when you have low accountability,
when you're as a,
as a person in a leadership position,when you're modeling low accountability,
it's like moving the fulcrum kind of allthe way, you know, in the wrong direction.
And so.
There's nothing. Like,no, there's no leverage.
There's no leverage, right.
Because nobodybecause leadership power must be earned.
(12:03):
You know, there's authority, and I canI can make you do what
I want you to do in the short term,if I threaten you, or.
And probably get some compliance.
In other words,you can get some compliance.
But true leadership, which iswhen I leave the room when I'm not around,
are you still going to be doingwhat I asked you to do,
even when there is no kind of obviouscarrot and stick?
(12:25):
You know, to, toto get you to do those things.
And that's the real power of leadership is
will I follow this person's direction,even when they're not around?
And we've seen, you know,the great leaders,
you know, of this world,Gandhi, Martin Luther King,
you know, Abraham Lincoln,
these people,Mother Teresa, these people who,
(12:47):
they they still are moving people.
They are still inspiring people
to move in the directionthat they asked them to move in,
because they have earned their respect.
And that's the really cool thingabout accountability is,
is the ultimate fulcrum.
And when you are modeling highaccountability, you move that fulcrum all,
all the way over to the other sideto give you maximum leadership power.
(13:12):
And that's the message really,that I would like to get across
to, to the world.
Is that as you demonstrate accountability,it does
give you that, that true leadership powerto have people want to follow you.
The problem is when people call me up,
Kevin, usually it'sthe CEO calls me up and says, Michael,
(13:33):
we need to bring you in here becauseI think we have an accountability problem.
And, you know, he's not.Talking about him.
You know, like everybody else.I'm talking about everybody else.
And I'm like, dude, that is the problem.
And you know, you know.
It's at least part of the problemfor sure.
Right?
Well, he is part of the problem.
And but people in leadership positionsdon't see themselves
as part of the problem.And that is the problem, right?
(13:55):
That is the problemwhen people in leadership positions
don't see themselvesas part of the problem.
Which gets at one of the habitswhich we'll get to in a second.
There's there's two other things,
though, before we get thethe book is built around the three habits.
We're going to get to those
everybody and talkthat we won't be able to go into the depth
that that I might likeor that you might like.
And the reason for that is simple part.So you go get the book.
(14:15):
So I'm talking with Michael Timms,the author of How Leaders Can Inspire
Accountability Three Habits That Makeor Break Leaders and Elevate Performance.
So but before we get there, there's twoother things I want to ask you about.
First one is in this book, which you'venow outlined and we've been starting
to talk about, you have a chapter,excuse me, about systems thinking.
(14:37):
And I'm curious,
how you see systems thinking
fitting in to this conversation.
Yeah.
Systems thinking is.
So just to give you just a quick summary
of the three habitsof personal accountability.
First of all, actually,before we even get to the three habits
of personal accountability
(14:58):
and systems thinking,I will just digress for one moment.
And I think it's really important
that people understand somethingcritically important about accountability.
And accountability is about results.
It's not about actions.
It's not about,it's not about checking the box.
It's not about, you know, you know,doing the things on your to do list.
It's about taking ownership of results.
(15:20):
And there's a really big differencebetween taking ownership of results
and taking ownership of actions,taking ownership of actions and saying,
hey, I'm doing everything on my jobdescription.
You know, I'm done.
Kevin, you know, it's, you know,you're the boss.
It's up to you, you know, is you'rereally accountable for what's going on.
Taking ownership of results
is, is, saying, hey, hey, look,
(15:43):
or telling people, hey, look, you know,I don't really, really care.
You know, what you need to do? Like,this is the goal.
These are the results that we're after.
Please look at these results. Here's the,you know, basic guideline.
Stay within these guidelines. Right.
But go get those results.
And that actually frees people up.
To actually problem solve around theinevitable obstacles that they will face.
(16:03):
Right.
But if you're saying, hey, look,just do this, just do this, do this.
If I encounter an obstacle on one of thesetask, did you give me, I'm going to say,
sorry, Kevin,I can't do what you asked me to do
because I've encounteredthis obstacle on this thing.
But if you just said,hey, Michael, just go get this thing.
I will.
Go get that thing, I will.
That unleashes my potential,my brainpower, and I will problem
(16:23):
solve around those things that come up toto achieve that goal.
So anyways,I think that's an important digression.
I think that's an importantstarting point.
Before we talk about, you know, howto inspire accountability in others.
Kind of step one really is to focuspeople on results, not tasks.
And I think that is where many leaders,
(16:45):
have created a culture
of blame, finger pointing,
unintentionally because they're, they're,
you know, people are saying, well,I did what I was supposed to do.
I did what you told me. To do, did my job.
I'm done. I'm out.
And that's that's not the kind of culturethat we're trying to create.
And but leaders don't realize
that they're creating a culturewhen they focus on people on on tasks.
(17:08):
So if I can take that one step further.
Yeah, sure.
I have been onI've been ranting for a long time
about a very related topicwhich will connect directly to this.
And that's the point that we think about.
People say that here's another, here'san actual four letter word.
Busy, and busy meansI've got a lot of tasks to do,
(17:28):
but it doesn't say anything aboutwhat did you would get accomplished.
Like their productivity isn't about timespent, it's about actions.
It's about outcomes, right?
Right.
It's about to use your languageabout results.
And so that same thinking that gets usfouled up or fouls our thinking around
productivity is exactly the same thingyou're talking about here.
(17:50):
And they end up being directly connected
because then everyone is nowfocused as well.
I did my stuff. I did the list.
I follow the process as opposed to didwe get the results?
Yeah, exactly.
And so if leaders can startif you if you really if you're a leader
and you're listening to this podcast,I would encourage
you to, to first get clear,help your organization get clear on what
(18:11):
what are we what do we after?
Are we after, you know, people
completing the list of tasksor actually after outcomes?
And if you are after outcomes,which I suspect you are,
will then focus people on those outcomesand get really clear on those outcomes.
That's your first step to creating aculture of accountability and excellence.
So on.
But I do want to get towhat you were talking about, which is,
you know, systems thinking.
And how does systems thinking applyto accountability
(18:33):
and personal accountabilityand modeling accountability.
So with for that, I
think I probably the three habitskind of work in sequence.
So probably writers start withis it okay if I start with one?
I do and I'll give you a brief overview.
So the three habitsof personal accountability.
So how you can influence others.
The most powerful thing you can doto influence other people to step up,
(18:56):
is for youto raise your level of accountability
and know that this every leader you know,if you're in a leadership position,
typically you are demonstratinga pretty high level of accountability.
You probably wouldn't have goneinto a leadership position if you're not,
you're modeling itto a certain extent, but
it's taking it to thatnext level when you when you,
(19:18):
when you take it to the kind of remarkable
leadershiplevel of modeling accountability,
that's, that's reallywhere you get that power
to actually influence other peopleto step up their game.
And it's really comes down to three habitsto take it to that next level.
And the first habit is to don't blame,
to stop blaming when things go wrong.
(19:41):
We are naturally inclined.
Most of us are naturally inclinedto find someone or something
to blame for our problems.
That's not helpful because it killsaccountability in ourselves, right?
And it says, well,I have no power if, if, if, if 100% of
this problem is Kevin's fault,
(20:02):
then I have absolutely no power to fix it.
I've just given away my power to Kevin,
you know, to solve this problem.
Right? And I've become a helpless victim.
So that'sso it kills accountability on yourself,
but it also kills accountabilityin other people.
When you blame people for problems,
it puts them into fight or flight mode,and they are not using.
(20:22):
So what happens when you get into fightor flight mode?
It actually shutsdown your prefrontal cortex.
So that so the problemsolving part of your brain shuts down
and all you care aboutis defending yourself.
You're not concerned about solvingproblems.
You're concerned about defending yourself.
And so when you blame people,you're actually shutting down
the part of the brain that could solvethe problem that you're blaming them for.
(20:44):
But they can't because you just shutdown that part of the brain.
But another thing that blame
does is and, you know, a lot of there'sa lot of books out right now about trust.
We want to build trust, you know,
and there's a lot of thinking aroundhow do you build trust?
Here's the number one way to build trust.
Stop destroying it by blaming people.
All right okay.
(21:04):
That's the number one secret to buildingtrust is to stop destroying
trust because nothing killstrust quicker to blame sometimes.
Habit number one, don't blame.
Okay.
So okay, what do you do insteadif I'm if something goes wrong
and I am not and I'm going to say,hey, I'm not going to blame people
because I know it's a bad thingand it causes a lot of dysfunction.
(21:25):
What do I do next?
Next thing you should do is take a lookat yourself and say, hey, look,
did I have a part to play in this,in this undesirable outcome?
And it's called look in the mirror.
So how about you is look in the mirror,you know, and say,
how may I have contributedto this problem?
And when you ask yourself sincerely,you ask yourself that question.
(21:45):
Even if I've done this, I've done thiswhen I'm convinced it's 100%
somebody else's fault, I said, fine,I will ask the stupid question
how may I have contributedto this problem?
And when I actuallyverbalize that question,
all of a sudden my my mind is open.
I'm like.
Well, I could have I might have.
Actually, now that I mention it,now that I asked myself
(22:08):
that question, I'm like, oh, shoot,now I actually do see something
I could have done ator and, or something I can do.
And that's really empowering
when because again, you know,now that I have taken ownership
of at least part of that problem,that is my power, right?
Maybe if I say, hey, I've got,you know, 20% of this, let's
(22:31):
say 80% of this is outside my control,that somebody else or something else.
Me 20% of this problem is on me.
And I can kind of own about 20% of it.
That's 20% more power that I now
have to createa better future than my present.
Okay, so that's again how taking ownershipgives you personal power.
(22:52):
Now, and by theway, if you sincerely ask that question
and you can't see how you have contributedto this problem, it is probably worth
your while to ask other people say, hey,like Kevin, honestly,
you know, this is this is not, like,I don't want to blame anybody.
This is a problem.
I honestly can't see how I've contributedthis problem.
(23:13):
Kevin, is there anything you can see
that I could have done differentlyto produce a better outcome?
Right.
Because not only am
I actually getting important informationfrom you, potentially,
I'm also building trust because instantlyyou respect me more, right?
Instantly when people actually are willingto say, hey, I am willing to own this.
If this if any of this is on me,you instantly respect them more.
(23:37):
And you and you trust them more.
So that's what that does.
So now let's say,
okay, you know,let's say I can own a part of this,
but there's, there's other thingsthat are going on here.
Habit three is engineering the solution.
That is systems thinking and systemsthinking says
that,
(23:57):
there are likely so,
you know, as a, as a society, science,we've done a lot of work
on figuring out why bad things happen,why problems happen.
And the more we learn about, why problemshappen, the more we've discovered
that, problems happenfor usually a combination of factors.
It's usually not 100%one person's fault or 100%,
(24:20):
you know, somebody else's, you know,or this other, external factors fault.
Right?There's usually a combination of factors.
And that's really what systems thinking
helps us do is again,opens our minds up to other possibilities.
Okay. So this is my part.
Could systems have contributed?
Could poor systems have, you know,
kind of laid a trap for this individualto make this mistake?
(24:42):
I'll give you ajust kind of a simple example.
One time, like I use life pulling,
you know, I
use life pulling in my presentationsand there's a bunch of different templates
that we have, and we're constantly kindof, you know, we have these templates,
but then we'll use these templatesfor a different client and then,
and so we've got a bunch of our templateson our work in process, kind of all
(25:05):
in the same area.
One time one of our templates got deleted.
And I knew it wasn't me.And then my sister knew it wasn't her.
And so it had to be the other personin the organization.
And my system was like,I am going to murder Mel, you know it.
And I was like, okay, well, beforewe murder Melissa, let's think about,
you know,let's let's go through the three habits.
First of all, let's not blame her.
(25:27):
You know, I'm still frustrated.
She's still frustrated.
Okay, let's look in the mirror.
How may I have contributed this problem?
As soon as I asked that question,I realized
my assistant, her name was carrying.I said, hey, Carrie.
Actually, you know what?
Honestly, I have almost accidentallydeleted one of those templates,
and she kind of sheepishly is like,
you know what sort ofI almost accidentally.
And why why have we almost atwhy both of us almost accidentally deleted
(25:48):
one of these is because our templateswere mixed in with our work in process.
Right?
And that is a recipe for problems, right?
There was a different folderand we had different folder.
Right. That's all we did.And so we put them in a different folder.
And I'll tell you what that did.
So and that's what systems thinking doesI say hey when we start to say what were,
what were some of the otherfactors that are involved?
(26:11):
Then we can
build better processes to make sure thatwe don't make the same mistakes again.
And that was really kind of thethe incremental path to excellence,
is to think about all those other factors.
And, and by the way, in that situation,that was going to be,
because another person or organizationreported to carry that would have been had
we not walked through those three habitsof personal accountability,
that would have been
a very uncomfortable conversation for Malto have with carry kids carry admin.
(26:34):
You should have been more careful,you know,
how could you have let this happen?
And Mal would have felt bad
because she knew she did it right,or she would have thought no.
Maybe she forgot.
Maybe she didn't know she did itand she would have thought, carry on it
and it would have been a bad situationeither way.
But the way that situation turned outis carriages went to Mal and said,
hey, Mal, by the way, heads up.
(26:56):
We have realized that,you know, one of our, you know,
we're deleting our templates by accident.
We create a new folder. Heads up.
This is just our new process,right? Great.
Problem solved.
And what do we do?We really care about making Mal feel bad.
And I think partly when we blame people,it just makes us feel better.
Right?
You are stupid. We are smart. Right?
(27:17):
And we're going to beat you up.
And that's partly why we blame people.
But that is not helpful at all.
What is helpful is solving problemsto make sure that they don't happen again.
And that's where systemsthinking comes in.
So how do we
so as I was reading
the section on engineering solutions,
and I certainly follow the logicand I think it makes sense,
(27:38):
and you talk a lot about processesas you've just done in this example,
we you where you startedwas I'm going to unleash
people to go own the problemand solve the problem.
How do we juxtapose that against here'sour process.
You know, actually processes
are a fantastic wayto engineer the solution.
(28:00):
And processes.
Now some organizations, either you know,they can over process things and.
And kind of where I get it here. Okay.
So you can have a process for everything.
And that then what that doesis that builds
kind of shrinking wallsaround your people's brains.
Right. And that gives themsmaller and smaller boxes.
(28:23):
So the here's generally speaking,
there's kind of two, two factorsyou want to consider.
Before you build a process.
Is it worthy of a process?
Number one, is this somethingthat will repeat again in the future?
Several times.
Right? Numerous times. Right.
If it's going to repeat, this is a task.
If this is work that we're goingto have to repeat over and over again,
(28:44):
that's one factor to consider.
Another factor to consider is how
how important is theis is getting the outcome right.
How or
how, you know, how importantis it to get the outcome right.
And if.
You only one right answer, which is onethat I often think about, right.
Is there one right answer here?
Yeah.And something I probably need to process.
Sometimes there sometimes there is,and I'll tell you in a, in a situation
(29:08):
where it's really important to followprocesses is when there's a safety issue.
Right?
We follow these processesthat on the surface kind of seem kind of,
bureaucratic or whatever,but we follow that because we have learned
through that experience that if we don'tfollow this process, people get hurt.
That's a really high consequencefor not following a process.
(29:28):
Right?
For sure.
And so, and so what
process is actually free up,you know, when you're,
when you're doing it strategically,when you're saying, hey, look, we're
we're doing it for our processes that arerepeat and have high consequences.
If it doesn't go right,
what happens is that then,
(29:50):
processes are checklists.
They're actually a mental hackbecause what they allow you to do
is not expend so much mental energy
trying to make all of thesemicro decisions along the way.
And you can just simply just follow that,that, that, you know, kind of checklist
for this important processwhile freeing up your brain to be focused
on the outcome,to be focused on the results,
(30:12):
because there might be little tweaksto that process
as you're going, oh, this is a differentthis is a different result.
This is a slightly different situation.
We might need to tweak that processjust a little bit.
Right.
You can't you can't do that.
Right.
If you can't, it's really toughto stay focused on the outcome
(30:33):
when you don't have a processand you're you're expending mental energy
making all of these micro decisionsalong the way.
And so that's thethat's the brilliant thing about,
engineering solutions and checklistsand having processes,
standard operating procedures.
Is, isreally kind of a, it's a mental hack.
(30:54):
But you got to do it strategically.
So we've talked about the three habits.
We've talked about what accounting means
about accountability means we've talkedabout how it needs to start with us,
and that it isn't something we do toothers, but something we do with others.
And it starts with us.
Is there anything that I didn't askor we didn't talk about,
Michael, that in a couple final minutesthat you would want to add?
(31:19):
Yeah.
I think one of the things I thinkone of the things people ask me often is,
okay, well, what if it really is
somebody else's fault,you know, can we can we blame on them?
And my answer to that question iswould it be helpful,
you know, what are you trying to achieve?
How is that something anything. Yeah.
Are you trying to produce a better outcomeor are you just trying to get them
(31:40):
to take ownershipfor their head and shame and
and they're there.
So the point is, is that it's not likethere is never,
never a time and place for youto have a tough conversation.
There is. Absolutely.
And that is one of the waysthat, you know, when we talk about
I talked about there'sa couple of different,
(32:00):
you know, key leadership conferencesaround accountability.
One is, you know, modeling accountability.
The other ishow do we hold other people accountable
when they're not, you know, when they'renot, taking accountability themselves?
There's a time and placeto have those tough conversations.
But the problem is, is theour brains are wired such that
we immediately when there's a problem,we immediately go to it's 100%
(32:21):
of this person's fault, or it's 100%the situation's fault and it's 0% on me.
And it's 0%. Zero and 100.
It's real.
And the other thing is, is and it's
and it has nothing to dowith the processes, right?
It has.It's all because that person is an idiot.
Or they're lazyor they're unmotivated or whatever. Right.
And that is actually it's it'sactually it's a psychological gremlin
(32:43):
that exists in all of our brains,is one of the most well studied
psychological phenomenoncalled the fundamental attribution bias.
And we immediately go to other people,
and we ignore all of the other factorsthat contribute to these problems.
So my point is this is that first, focus
on if you want to build accountabilitywithin your organization.
(33:06):
First, model accountability yourself.
Actually, first,
make sure that everybody understandsthat it's about it's about outcomes.
It's about results. Focuspeople on the results, not the tasks.
But then model it yourself.
And as you model it yourself,you make it way safer for other people
to step up and take accountabilityand say, you know what?
(33:26):
Yeah. You know what?
I think there are some problems.
Maybe there's some process problems here,maybe that didn't go well.
And you know what?
This is probably part ofthis is on me to be far more likely
to get that responseand get people to truly take ownership.
When you're modelinga high standard of accountability.
And that's really all we're as leaders,that's really that's the key behavior
(33:46):
we're looking for from employees is, hey,when things go wrong, just own your part.
Focus on solutions, and let's make surethat it doesn't happen again.
Right? Fix it and then make surethat doesn't happen again
for sure.
So, a couple of things before we go,Michael, kind of shifting gears
before we finish, and the first one isthis when you're not working with leaders
(34:09):
and talking about accountability,what do you do for fun?
Oh, well, I, I love the outdoors.
I, I live in
British Columbia,which is kind of nature's playground.
There's lots of mountainsand lakes and stuff where I live.
And, so, like,the mountain bike, like to snow ski and,
(34:30):
hike and camp and so on.
Yeah. And I have, I have,
three teenage daughters
who, keep me active as well,and a wonderful wife.
So we like to hang, hang out as a familyand do fun stuff outside and travel.
And the only thing you knew,I was going to ask.
The only thing I prompted you and told youI was going to ask you, is this.
(34:51):
What are you reading these days?
Yeah, I think, you know, I,I try to read stuff
that a lot of people are like, well,who's a great example of accountability?
And one of the greatI think, models of accountability
we kind of learn from is DwightEisenhower.
And, I, I've recently read a book
by his granddaughter,Susan Eisenhower called How Ike LED.
(35:12):
You know what?
We could all stand to,to try to be a little bit more like Ike.
And so, yeah,
that's a it's a good book recommendation
trivia moment.
When Kevin was a kid with the last nameof Eikenberry, I was often called Ike.
So I have never said that out loudbefore in the setting.
Here it is now. Me like.
(35:33):
Like me like, be like. Like.
There you go.
So, where
where can we find outmore about your work, about the book?
Where do you want to point people?
Michael, before we wrap up.
Yeah.
So, just hack GoogleMichael Tims, and you'll, you'll find me.
I think for people who want to get
a quick introduction to my work,I think you'll enjoy the the Ted talk.
(35:57):
So it'scalled How to Claim Your Leadership power.
So if you just Google
Michael Tims, actually, that's probablyone of the first things it'll pop up.
So I encourage you to check that out.
And if you'd like to learn moreabout how I work with organizations
and help them to build a cultureof accountability and excellence,
you'll you'll be able to see,find my website and get in touch.
(36:20):
Michael tims.com everybody.
And I hope that you'll do that.
And before we go and before
Michael and I say our goodbyes,the question that I will ask you,
it is an accountability question,everybody, because it's a question
based on results.
A question
I ask every single week is now whatwhat will you do with what you got here?
It's not the action.
The activity is well,I listen to a podcast.
(36:43):
That result comewhen you take action on what you learned.
And I'm not here to tell you whatyou should take action on, but rather
to encourage you urge you,
implore you to ask this question,what will I do now?
Based on what I learned
from Michael and Kevin,
and I hope that you will answerthat question and take those actions.
Because when you do, you will get betterresults and you will be doing exactly
(37:08):
what Michael said,which is modeling accountability yourself.
Michael, thanks so much for being here.It was a pleasure to have you.
Thanks for having me.
Take care everybody.We will be back next week.
If you listen, if you love this,I hope you did, tell somebody else.
Tell them to come join us next week.
Or come back and listen to thisor wherever you are listening to this.
(37:29):
Make sure you subscribeso you don't miss any future episodes.
Because we're back every week,and we will be back
next week with another episodeof the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.
We'll see you this.
Sometimes I've
jokingly said that accountabilityis the longest four letter word
in the English language,and there is often truth in jest.
And yet, when we think aboutand create accountability
in the correct and most effective ways,it is not a four letter word.
It is a significant driver to our success.
(00:31):
Accountability is our conversation today.
And so welcome to another episodeof the Remarkable Leadership Podcast,
where we are helping leadersgrow personally and professionally
to lead more effectively, make a bigger,
positive difference for their teamsorganizations in the world.
If you are listening to us,you could have joined us.
(00:53):
Well, actually, in the futureyou could join us live.
And while we're on video,if you would like to do that,
you need to know when and whereto do that.
And the best way to do that isto join our Facebook or LinkedIn groups,
which are two of the platformswhere these things originally stream live.
Just go to remarkable podcast.com/facebookor a remarkable podcast.com/linkedin
(01:17):
to get all set up to get connectedto what we're doing, what's up and when.
These episodes originally simulcastlive stream.
I hope you will do that,and I hope that you will remember that.
Today's episode is brought to youby my latest book, Flexible Leadership.
Navigate Uncertaintyand Lead with Confidence.
It's timeto realize that styles can get in our way,
(01:41):
and that following our strengthsmight not always
be the best approach in a worldmore complex and uncertain than ever.
Leaders need a new perspective,a new set of tools
in order to create the results
that their organizations and team memberswant and need.
And that'swhat flexible leadership provide.
You can learn more and order your copyat remarkable podcast.com/flexible.
(02:05):
And having done all of our,
housekeeping and all of
our introducing, let me introduce the mostimportant part of today's episode.
And that is our guest.His name is Michael Timms.
He is a leadership developmentconsultant, author
and founder of Avail leadershipand has empowered thousands
of senior leaders to adopt powerfulleadership habits and practices that drive
(02:28):
measurable improvements in their teamperformance, engagement, and results.
His latest bookis How Leaders Can Inspire Accountability,
as promised that is the focusof our conversation today.
It's also the basis for his TEDx talk how?
Excuse me TEDx talkhow to claim Your Leadership power.
And you can look that upas you know how to do.
(02:50):
And with that,I will welcome Michael to the show.
Thanksgiving dinner sir.
Hey, I'm glad to be here.
Thanks very much for having me.
All the way from British Columbia.
Yeah.
When we're doing this virtually,I suppose that doesn't matter in a way.
And yet, therewe go, all the way from British Columbia.
So. What's a it's a connected world.
We're all we're all, we're all connected.
(03:12):
And so we've got someone here from Seattleand we've got,
and so welcome, Rob, and welcome,
Mark, see, for all of youthat I just said, if you wanted to join us
live, see, if you do
that gets get connected and signed upso you can do that in the future.
So what I want to start with, Michael, is
is a placeI start with many of our guests,
(03:34):
and that is for you to tell usa little bit more about your journey.
So obviously you didn't.
Well, I'mpresuming that you didn't wake up
when you were six years old and say,I'm going to be a leadership development.
Trainer and author coach,
tell us a little bit about how you end updoing this kind of work.
(03:57):
Sure.
If you go way back,
you was back in universitywhen, my parents gave me the book,
The Seven Habitsof Highly Effective People.
And I read that book and
and I was like, this is exactly what I do,what I want to do with my life.
And, and then I was like, well,how can I do that?
What do I how do I kind of changemy academic direction here?
And I, I focused in, in human resources,
(04:19):
got an MBA and specialized in HR and
and then did none of that in HR, like,I thought I was going to be doing
leadership development,organizational behavior
and know in HR is doing,you know, hiring, firing, training.
Actually not not very much training,but, policy things like that.
Anyways,
throughout my career in industry,my story might not be unlike
(04:43):
many of your viewers, which is my bossesgot progressively worse.
I ended my first boss was he'sa great guy, really cared about me.
And and I had five bosses in industryand each one got progressively worse.
And the last guy was just awful.
Super micromanager,
just destroyed my confidence.
And, and I remember feelingI remember thinking, man,
(05:07):
I don't want anybody to feel the waythat this guy is making me feel.
And that'swhen I decided to get back into,
my my love of leadership and,and helping organizations
teach people not just how to not be,you know, asshole bosses.
But how to actually, how to actuallybring out the best in other people.
(05:28):
How, you know, what what can I do asa, as a person in a position of authority
to actually help people, riseto their, to their,
greatest level and, and,and become their best selves, and in
so doing, you know, help the organizationachieve, achieve its goals.
So, so that that was kind ofhow I, how I got into to this.
(05:50):
And so one way to think about achievingthose things is through
that very long four letter wordthat I describe, accountability.
So do you want to say any morevery specifically about why
you and obviouslywe're talking about leadership
and your book titles, how leadersand then inspire accountability.
So obviously you talkedabout the leadership piece. Why account?
(06:11):
Why is accountability the focus ofthe book and much of your work?
Yeah, when I started,
consulting about ten years ago,I focused on succession planning.
And what many people don't knowis the very first step in succession
planning is to come up with a promotioncriteria.
So what is the criteria
by which we're going to promote peopleinto leadership positions?
(06:31):
Typically it's basically who's bent,who's the most technically competent,
who's been here the longest,which are not good predictors of.
Which are the wrong predictors.
Right. Exactly.
So what I would do is I'd meet with focusgroups and different organizations
and that I was working with and I would
and I would ask them,what are the leadership characteristics
that have led to specific positiveoutcomes in your organization?
(06:56):
And they would tell me storiesand we would connect the dots between
behavior, leadershipbehaviors and positive outcomes.
And you're not going to believewhat the number one
competency was that came up literally,I kid you not.
Like I did this dozens and dozensand dozens of focus groups.
Every single focus grouptalked about accountability
(07:16):
as being the most importantleadership competency.
And so I got really, really interestedin, accountability.
It wasn't just like it actually came upin a couple of different ways.
So, you know, people said,you know, it was it was leaders
who who demonstratedwho modeled accountability.
Right? That was that was
a key competency.
But another sort of relatedbut different is leaders
(07:39):
who actually help others be accountable.
And another one is how leaders can helpthe entire organization.
Like what?
What changes can you make tothe organization, to the structure,
to the processes to help
everybody get better results,which is what accountability is about.
We're talking about all those thingsas we go.
The I mean, just come back up and,you know, I didn't tell everybody.
(08:01):
I did not tell Michaelhow I was gonna introduce this.
I did not tell him that.I sometimes say accountability
is the longest four letter wordin English language.
Here's why I say that's true.
Or can be true
is that we we never pull the word upuntil there's a problem, right?
Right. I'm going to hold you accountable.
But what you're saying,both in the conversation
so far and in the book,is that it's ultimately about how,
(08:22):
as leaders,can we help people be accountable.
You just said,which is a totally different thing
than holding you accountablebecause you screwed up, right?
And that sort of thing.
So you want to comment on thatbefore we dive in any further?
Yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah.
And that that is a challenge. Well,
actually actually it was
the, the guy in charge of the Fedex,
(08:44):
when I did my TEDx talk, I wanted toto call to talk accountability.
He's like Michael, nobody,nobody wants to hear about accountability.
It's just,you know, going to put people to sleep.
But the reality is, is, you know,accountability is a positive thing
and gives you power to to get the rightresults for yourself and for other people.
(09:05):
But the challenges, as you pointed out,is that, you know,
the the way we useaccountability is as a weapon, right?
I'm going to hold you accountable.
Or when we hear it in the, in the newsmedia, it's, it's it's in that way.
It's it's, you know,that politician must be held accountable.
And really, what they're saying isthat politician is at fault.
They are to blameand they should be punished.
(09:26):
And so what we have doneeffectively as a society
is that we have turned the wordaccountability and used it as a euphemism
for what we're really talking about,which is blame and punishment,
which is ironicbecause blame is the absolute antithesis.
Of the opposite of 100%.
I found myself as I was reading the book,Michael says, nodding my head a lot.
(09:51):
But I also found thatthere's some things that you wrote
that you sayI'm almost exactly the same way I do.
So I don't know if that means,that both of us
need to learn something new, or we'rejust in an alignment that maybe both.
Beforewe go any further, I probably should say
ask you, like,what is your actual definition
of accountability?
(10:12):
Accountability is taking
ownership of results
and focusing on what you can do.
To improve future results.
So, hey, I'm going to ownwhatever my situation is.
I'm going to own it.
I'm not going to, you know, sit back andblame other people for for why I'm here.
Because that's not helpful.
(10:32):
And I'm going to focus my attention
on what I can do,not what you can do, not what you can do.
Not what the government can do,not what my boss can do.
But what can I do to improve mymy future outcomes?
So on page 30, in the book,I'm not going to make you
this is not a book report.
So I will read the quotethat I want you to comment on because
it's the transitioninto the rest of our conversation.
(10:54):
You say on page30, accountability is the fulcrum upon
which leadership is placed and on which
and which gives leadership its power.
Let me read it again.
Accountability is the fulcrum uponwhich leadership is placed
and which gives leadership its power.
What do you mean by that?
It was actually Stephen Coveywho introduced this idea
(11:17):
to me,that leadership is the ultimate lever.
You know,
you know, give me a lever long enoughand I can and I can move the world.
Right. And leadership is that lever.
But, but a lever to be effective,it needs a fulcrum.
And so you place that leveron this fulcrum, and,
(11:38):
the challengeis, is when you have low accountability,
when you're as a,
as a person in a leadership position,when you're modeling low accountability,
it's like moving the fulcrum kind of allthe way, you know, in the wrong direction.
And so.
There's nothing. Like,no, there's no leverage.
There's no leverage, right.
Because nobodybecause leadership power must be earned.
(12:03):
You know, there's authority, and I canI can make you do what
I want you to do in the short term,if I threaten you, or.
And probably get some compliance.
In other words,you can get some compliance.
But true leadership, which iswhen I leave the room when I'm not around,
are you still going to be doingwhat I asked you to do,
even when there is no kind of obviouscarrot and stick?
(12:25):
You know, to, toto get you to do those things.
And that's the real power of leadership is
will I follow this person's direction,even when they're not around?
And we've seen, you know,the great leaders,
you know, of this world,Gandhi, Martin Luther King,
you know, Abraham Lincoln,
these people,Mother Teresa, these people who,
(12:47):
they they still are moving people.
They are still inspiring people
to move in the directionthat they asked them to move in,
because they have earned their respect.
And that's the really cool thingabout accountability is,
is the ultimate fulcrum.
And when you are modeling highaccountability, you move that fulcrum all,
all the way over to the other sideto give you maximum leadership power.
(13:12):
And that's the message really,that I would like to get across
to, to the world.
Is that as you demonstrate accountability,it does
give you that, that true leadership powerto have people want to follow you.
The problem is when people call me up,
Kevin, usually it'sthe CEO calls me up and says, Michael,
(13:33):
we need to bring you in here becauseI think we have an accountability problem.
And, you know, he's not.Talking about him.
You know, like everybody else.I'm talking about everybody else.
And I'm like, dude, that is the problem.
And you know, you know.
It's at least part of the problemfor sure.
Right?
Well, he is part of the problem.
And but people in leadership positionsdon't see themselves
as part of the problem.And that is the problem, right?
(13:55):
That is the problemwhen people in leadership positions
don't see themselvesas part of the problem.
Which gets at one of the habitswhich we'll get to in a second.
There's there's two other things,
though, before we get thethe book is built around the three habits.
We're going to get to those
everybody and talkthat we won't be able to go into the depth
that that I might likeor that you might like.
And the reason for that is simple part.So you go get the book.
(14:15):
So I'm talking with Michael Timms,the author of How Leaders Can Inspire
Accountability Three Habits That Makeor Break Leaders and Elevate Performance.
So but before we get there, there's twoother things I want to ask you about.
First one is in this book, which you'venow outlined and we've been starting
to talk about, you have a chapter,excuse me, about systems thinking.
(14:37):
And I'm curious,
how you see systems thinking
fitting in to this conversation.
Yeah.
Systems thinking is.
So just to give you just a quick summary
of the three habitsof personal accountability.
First of all, actually,before we even get to the three habits
of personal accountability
(14:58):
and systems thinking,I will just digress for one moment.
And I think it's really important
that people understand somethingcritically important about accountability.
And accountability is about results.
It's not about actions.
It's not about,it's not about checking the box.
It's not about, you know, you know,doing the things on your to do list.
It's about taking ownership of results.
(15:20):
And there's a really big differencebetween taking ownership of results
and taking ownership of actions,taking ownership of actions and saying,
hey, I'm doing everything on my jobdescription.
You know, I'm done.
Kevin, you know, it's, you know,you're the boss.
It's up to you, you know, is you'rereally accountable for what's going on.
Taking ownership of results
is, is, saying, hey, hey, look,
(15:43):
or telling people, hey, look, you know,I don't really, really care.
You know, what you need to do? Like,this is the goal.
These are the results that we're after.
Please look at these results. Here's the,you know, basic guideline.
Stay within these guidelines. Right.
But go get those results.
And that actually frees people up.
To actually problem solve around theinevitable obstacles that they will face.
(16:03):
Right.
But if you're saying, hey, look,just do this, just do this, do this.
If I encounter an obstacle on one of thesetask, did you give me, I'm going to say,
sorry, Kevin,I can't do what you asked me to do
because I've encounteredthis obstacle on this thing.
But if you just said,hey, Michael, just go get this thing.
I will.
Go get that thing, I will.
That unleashes my potential,my brainpower, and I will problem
(16:23):
solve around those things that come up toto achieve that goal.
So anyways,I think that's an important digression.
I think that's an importantstarting point.
Before we talk about, you know, howto inspire accountability in others.
Kind of step one really is to focuspeople on results, not tasks.
And I think that is where many leaders,
(16:45):
have created a culture
of blame, finger pointing,
unintentionally because they're, they're,
you know, people are saying, well,I did what I was supposed to do.
I did what you told me. To do, did my job.
I'm done. I'm out.
And that's that's not the kind of culturethat we're trying to create.
And but leaders don't realize
that they're creating a culturewhen they focus on people on on tasks.
(17:08):
So if I can take that one step further.
Yeah, sure.
I have been onI've been ranting for a long time
about a very related topicwhich will connect directly to this.
And that's the point that we think about.
People say that here's another, here'san actual four letter word.
Busy, and busy meansI've got a lot of tasks to do,
(17:28):
but it doesn't say anything aboutwhat did you would get accomplished.
Like their productivity isn't about timespent, it's about actions.
It's about outcomes, right?
Right.
It's about to use your languageabout results.
And so that same thinking that gets usfouled up or fouls our thinking around
productivity is exactly the same thingyou're talking about here.
(17:50):
And they end up being directly connected
because then everyone is nowfocused as well.
I did my stuff. I did the list.
I follow the process as opposed to didwe get the results?
Yeah, exactly.
And so if leaders can startif you if you really if you're a leader
and you're listening to this podcast,I would encourage
you to, to first get clear,help your organization get clear on what
(18:11):
what are we what do we after?
Are we after, you know, people
completing the list of tasksor actually after outcomes?
And if you are after outcomes,which I suspect you are,
will then focus people on those outcomesand get really clear on those outcomes.
That's your first step to creating aculture of accountability and excellence.
So on.
But I do want to get towhat you were talking about, which is,
you know, systems thinking.
And how does systems thinking applyto accountability
(18:33):
and personal accountabilityand modeling accountability.
So with for that, I
think I probably the three habitskind of work in sequence.
So probably writers start withis it okay if I start with one?
I do and I'll give you a brief overview.
So the three habitsof personal accountability.
So how you can influence others.
The most powerful thing you can doto influence other people to step up,
(18:56):
is for youto raise your level of accountability
and know that this every leader you know,if you're in a leadership position,
typically you are demonstratinga pretty high level of accountability.
You probably wouldn't have goneinto a leadership position if you're not,
you're modeling itto a certain extent, but
it's taking it to thatnext level when you when you,
(19:18):
when you take it to the kind of remarkable
leadershiplevel of modeling accountability,
that's, that's reallywhere you get that power
to actually influence other peopleto step up their game.
And it's really comes down to three habitsto take it to that next level.
And the first habit is to don't blame,
to stop blaming when things go wrong.
(19:41):
We are naturally inclined.
Most of us are naturally inclinedto find someone or something
to blame for our problems.
That's not helpful because it killsaccountability in ourselves, right?
And it says, well,I have no power if, if, if, if 100% of
this problem is Kevin's fault,
(20:02):
then I have absolutely no power to fix it.
I've just given away my power to Kevin,
you know, to solve this problem.
Right? And I've become a helpless victim.
So that'sso it kills accountability on yourself,
but it also kills accountabilityin other people.
When you blame people for problems,
it puts them into fight or flight mode,and they are not using.
(20:22):
So what happens when you get into fightor flight mode?
It actually shutsdown your prefrontal cortex.
So that so the problemsolving part of your brain shuts down
and all you care aboutis defending yourself.
You're not concerned about solvingproblems.
You're concerned about defending yourself.
And so when you blame people,you're actually shutting down
the part of the brain that could solvethe problem that you're blaming them for.
(20:44):
But they can't because you just shutdown that part of the brain.
But another thing that blame
does is and, you know, a lot of there'sa lot of books out right now about trust.
We want to build trust, you know,
and there's a lot of thinking aroundhow do you build trust?
Here's the number one way to build trust.
Stop destroying it by blaming people.
All right okay.
(21:04):
That's the number one secret to buildingtrust is to stop destroying
trust because nothing killstrust quicker to blame sometimes.
Habit number one, don't blame.
Okay.
So okay, what do you do insteadif I'm if something goes wrong
and I am not and I'm going to say,hey, I'm not going to blame people
because I know it's a bad thingand it causes a lot of dysfunction.
(21:25):
What do I do next?
Next thing you should do is take a lookat yourself and say, hey, look,
did I have a part to play in this,in this undesirable outcome?
And it's called look in the mirror.
So how about you is look in the mirror,you know, and say,
how may I have contributedto this problem?
And when you ask yourself sincerely,you ask yourself that question.
(21:45):
Even if I've done this, I've done thiswhen I'm convinced it's 100%
somebody else's fault, I said, fine,I will ask the stupid question
how may I have contributedto this problem?
And when I actuallyverbalize that question,
all of a sudden my my mind is open.
I'm like.
Well, I could have I might have.
Actually, now that I mention it,now that I asked myself
(22:08):
that question, I'm like, oh, shoot,now I actually do see something
I could have done ator and, or something I can do.
And that's really empowering
when because again, you know,now that I have taken ownership
of at least part of that problem,that is my power, right?
Maybe if I say, hey, I've got,you know, 20% of this, let's
(22:31):
say 80% of this is outside my control,that somebody else or something else.
Me 20% of this problem is on me.
And I can kind of own about 20% of it.
That's 20% more power that I now
have to createa better future than my present.
Okay, so that's again how taking ownershipgives you personal power.
(22:52):
Now, and by theway, if you sincerely ask that question
and you can't see how you have contributedto this problem, it is probably worth
your while to ask other people say, hey,like Kevin, honestly,
you know, this is this is not, like,I don't want to blame anybody.
This is a problem.
I honestly can't see how I've contributedthis problem.
(23:13):
Kevin, is there anything you can see
that I could have done differentlyto produce a better outcome?
Right.
Because not only am
I actually getting important informationfrom you, potentially,
I'm also building trust because instantlyyou respect me more, right?
Instantly when people actually are willingto say, hey, I am willing to own this.
If this if any of this is on me,you instantly respect them more.
(23:37):
And you and you trust them more.
So that's what that does.
So now let's say,
okay, you know,let's say I can own a part of this,
but there's, there's other thingsthat are going on here.
Habit three is engineering the solution.
That is systems thinking and systemsthinking says
that,
(23:57):
there are likely so,
you know, as a, as a society, science,we've done a lot of work
on figuring out why bad things happen,why problems happen.
And the more we learn about, why problemshappen, the more we've discovered
that, problems happenfor usually a combination of factors.
It's usually not 100%one person's fault or 100%,
(24:20):
you know, somebody else's, you know,or this other, external factors fault.
Right?There's usually a combination of factors.
And that's really what systems thinking
helps us do is again,opens our minds up to other possibilities.
Okay. So this is my part.
Could systems have contributed?
Could poor systems have, you know,
kind of laid a trap for this individualto make this mistake?
(24:42):
I'll give you ajust kind of a simple example.
One time, like I use life pulling,
you know, I
use life pulling in my presentationsand there's a bunch of different templates
that we have, and we're constantly kindof, you know, we have these templates,
but then we'll use these templatesfor a different client and then,
and so we've got a bunch of our templateson our work in process, kind of all
(25:05):
in the same area.
One time one of our templates got deleted.
And I knew it wasn't me.And then my sister knew it wasn't her.
And so it had to be the other personin the organization.
And my system was like,I am going to murder Mel, you know it.
And I was like, okay, well, beforewe murder Melissa, let's think about,
you know,let's let's go through the three habits.
First of all, let's not blame her.
(25:27):
You know, I'm still frustrated.
She's still frustrated.
Okay, let's look in the mirror.
How may I have contributed this problem?
As soon as I asked that question,I realized
my assistant, her name was carrying.I said, hey, Carrie.
Actually, you know what?
Honestly, I have almost accidentallydeleted one of those templates,
and she kind of sheepishly is like,
you know what sort ofI almost accidentally.
And why why have we almost atwhy both of us almost accidentally deleted
(25:48):
one of these is because our templateswere mixed in with our work in process.
Right?
And that is a recipe for problems, right?
There was a different folderand we had different folder.
Right. That's all we did.And so we put them in a different folder.
And I'll tell you what that did.
So and that's what systems thinking doesI say hey when we start to say what were,
what were some of the otherfactors that are involved?
(26:11):
Then we can
build better processes to make sure thatwe don't make the same mistakes again.
And that was really kind of thethe incremental path to excellence,
is to think about all those other factors.
And, and by the way, in that situation,that was going to be,
because another person or organizationreported to carry that would have been had
we not walked through those three habitsof personal accountability,
that would have been
a very uncomfortable conversation for Malto have with carry kids carry admin.
(26:34):
You should have been more careful,you know,
how could you have let this happen?
And Mal would have felt bad
because she knew she did it right,or she would have thought no.
Maybe she forgot.
Maybe she didn't know she did itand she would have thought, carry on it
and it would have been a bad situationeither way.
But the way that situation turned outis carriages went to Mal and said,
hey, Mal, by the way, heads up.
(26:56):
We have realized that,you know, one of our, you know,
we're deleting our templates by accident.
We create a new folder. Heads up.
This is just our new process,right? Great.
Problem solved.
And what do we do?We really care about making Mal feel bad.
And I think partly when we blame people,it just makes us feel better.
Right?
You are stupid. We are smart. Right?
(27:17):
And we're going to beat you up.
And that's partly why we blame people.
But that is not helpful at all.
What is helpful is solving problemsto make sure that they don't happen again.
And that's where systemsthinking comes in.
So how do we
so as I was reading
the section on engineering solutions,
and I certainly follow the logicand I think it makes sense,
(27:38):
and you talk a lot about processesas you've just done in this example,
we you where you startedwas I'm going to unleash
people to go own the problemand solve the problem.
How do we juxtapose that against here'sour process.
You know, actually processes
are a fantastic wayto engineer the solution.
(28:00):
And processes.
Now some organizations, either you know,they can over process things and.
And kind of where I get it here. Okay.
So you can have a process for everything.
And that then what that doesis that builds
kind of shrinking wallsaround your people's brains.
Right. And that gives themsmaller and smaller boxes.
(28:23):
So the here's generally speaking,
there's kind of two, two factorsyou want to consider.
Before you build a process.
Is it worthy of a process?
Number one, is this somethingthat will repeat again in the future?
Several times.
Right? Numerous times. Right.
If it's going to repeat, this is a task.
If this is work that we're goingto have to repeat over and over again,
(28:44):
that's one factor to consider.
Another factor to consider is how
how important is theis is getting the outcome right.
How or
how, you know, how importantis it to get the outcome right.
And if.
You only one right answer, which is onethat I often think about, right.
Is there one right answer here?
Yeah.And something I probably need to process.
Sometimes there sometimes there is,and I'll tell you in a, in a situation
(29:08):
where it's really important to followprocesses is when there's a safety issue.
Right?
We follow these processesthat on the surface kind of seem kind of,
bureaucratic or whatever,but we follow that because we have learned
through that experience that if we don'tfollow this process, people get hurt.
That's a really high consequencefor not following a process.
(29:28):
Right?
For sure.
And so, and so what
process is actually free up,you know, when you're,
when you're doing it strategically,when you're saying, hey, look, we're
we're doing it for our processes that arerepeat and have high consequences.
If it doesn't go right,
what happens is that then,
(29:50):
processes are checklists.
They're actually a mental hackbecause what they allow you to do
is not expend so much mental energy
trying to make all of thesemicro decisions along the way.
And you can just simply just follow that,that, that, you know, kind of checklist
for this important processwhile freeing up your brain to be focused
on the outcome,to be focused on the results,
(30:12):
because there might be little tweaksto that process
as you're going, oh, this is a differentthis is a different result.
This is a slightly different situation.
We might need to tweak that processjust a little bit.
Right.
You can't you can't do that.
Right.
If you can't, it's really toughto stay focused on the outcome
(30:33):
when you don't have a processand you're you're expending mental energy
making all of these micro decisionsalong the way.
And so that's thethat's the brilliant thing about,
engineering solutions and checklistsand having processes,
standard operating procedures.
Is, isreally kind of a, it's a mental hack.
(30:54):
But you got to do it strategically.
So we've talked about the three habits.
We've talked about what accounting means
about accountability means we've talkedabout how it needs to start with us,
and that it isn't something we do toothers, but something we do with others.
And it starts with us.
Is there anything that I didn't askor we didn't talk about,
Michael, that in a couple final minutesthat you would want to add?
(31:19):
Yeah.
I think one of the things I thinkone of the things people ask me often is,
okay, well, what if it really is
somebody else's fault,you know, can we can we blame on them?
And my answer to that question iswould it be helpful,
you know, what are you trying to achieve?
How is that something anything. Yeah.
Are you trying to produce a better outcomeor are you just trying to get them
(31:40):
to take ownershipfor their head and shame and
and they're there.
So the point is, is that it's not likethere is never,
never a time and place for youto have a tough conversation.
There is. Absolutely.
And that is one of the waysthat, you know, when we talk about
I talked about there'sa couple of different,
(32:00):
you know, key leadership conferencesaround accountability.
One is, you know, modeling accountability.
The other ishow do we hold other people accountable
when they're not, you know, when they'renot, taking accountability themselves?
There's a time and placeto have those tough conversations.
But the problem is, is theour brains are wired such that
we immediately when there's a problem,we immediately go to it's 100%
(32:21):
of this person's fault, or it's 100%the situation's fault and it's 0% on me.
And it's 0%. Zero and 100.
It's real.
And the other thing is, is and it's
and it has nothing to dowith the processes, right?
It has.It's all because that person is an idiot.
Or they're lazyor they're unmotivated or whatever. Right.
And that is actually it's it'sactually it's a psychological gremlin
(32:43):
that exists in all of our brains,is one of the most well studied
psychological phenomenoncalled the fundamental attribution bias.
And we immediately go to other people,
and we ignore all of the other factorsthat contribute to these problems.
So my point is this is that first, focus
on if you want to build accountabilitywithin your organization.
(33:06):
First, model accountability yourself.
Actually, first,
make sure that everybody understandsthat it's about it's about outcomes.
It's about results. Focuspeople on the results, not the tasks.
But then model it yourself.
And as you model it yourself,you make it way safer for other people
to step up and take accountabilityand say, you know what?
(33:26):
Yeah. You know what?
I think there are some problems.
Maybe there's some process problems here,maybe that didn't go well.
And you know what?
This is probably part ofthis is on me to be far more likely
to get that responseand get people to truly take ownership.
When you're modelinga high standard of accountability.
And that's really all we're as leaders,that's really that's the key behavior
(33:46):
we're looking for from employees is, hey,when things go wrong, just own your part.
Focus on solutions, and let's make surethat it doesn't happen again.
Right? Fix it and then make surethat doesn't happen again
for sure.
So, a couple of things before we go,Michael, kind of shifting gears
before we finish, and the first one isthis when you're not working with leaders
(34:09):
and talking about accountability,what do you do for fun?
Oh, well, I, I love the outdoors.
I, I live in
British Columbia,which is kind of nature's playground.
There's lots of mountainsand lakes and stuff where I live.
And, so, like,the mountain bike, like to snow ski and,
(34:30):
hike and camp and so on.
Yeah. And I have, I have,
three teenage daughters
who, keep me active as well,and a wonderful wife.
So we like to hang, hang out as a familyand do fun stuff outside and travel.
And the only thing you knew,I was going to ask.
The only thing I prompted you and told youI was going to ask you, is this.
(34:51):
What are you reading these days?
Yeah, I think, you know, I,I try to read stuff
that a lot of people are like, well,who's a great example of accountability?
And one of the greatI think, models of accountability
we kind of learn from is DwightEisenhower.
And, I, I've recently read a book
by his granddaughter,Susan Eisenhower called How Ike LED.
(35:12):
You know what?
We could all stand to,to try to be a little bit more like Ike.
And so, yeah,
that's a it's a good book recommendation
trivia moment.
When Kevin was a kid with the last nameof Eikenberry, I was often called Ike.
So I have never said that out loudbefore in the setting.
Here it is now. Me like.
(35:33):
Like me like, be like. Like.
There you go.
So, where
where can we find outmore about your work, about the book?
Where do you want to point people?
Michael, before we wrap up.
Yeah.
So, just hack GoogleMichael Tims, and you'll, you'll find me.
I think for people who want to get
a quick introduction to my work,I think you'll enjoy the the Ted talk.
(35:57):
So it'scalled How to Claim Your Leadership power.
So if you just Google
Michael Tims, actually, that's probablyone of the first things it'll pop up.
So I encourage you to check that out.
And if you'd like to learn moreabout how I work with organizations
and help them to build a cultureof accountability and excellence,
you'll you'll be able to see,find my website and get in touch.
(36:20):
Michael tims.com everybody.
And I hope that you'll do that.
And before we go and before
Michael and I say our goodbyes,the question that I will ask you,
it is an accountability question,everybody, because it's a question
based on results.
A question
I ask every single week is now whatwhat will you do with what you got here?
It's not the action.
The activity is well,I listen to a podcast.
(36:43):
That result comewhen you take action on what you learned.
And I'm not here to tell you whatyou should take action on, but rather
to encourage you urge you,
implore you to ask this question,what will I do now?
Based on what I learned
from Michael and Kevin,
and I hope that you will answerthat question and take those actions.
Because when you do, you will get betterresults and you will be doing exactly
(37:08):
what Michael said,which is modeling accountability yourself.
Michael, thanks so much for being here.It was a pleasure to have you.
Thanks for having me.
Take care everybody.We will be back next week.
If you listen, if you love this,I hope you did, tell somebody else.
Tell them to come join us next week.
Or come back and listen to thisor wherever you are listening to this.
(37:29):
Make sure you subscribeso you don't miss any future episodes.
Because we're back every week,and we will be back
next week with another episodeof the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.
We'll see you this.
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