What is your organization doing to make employees and customer both feel safe and be safe at work? When you feel at risk, are you comfortable speaking up? Please take a few minutes to let us know what you and your team are doing to create safety at work.
Thank you for participating in our research. All those who participate will be entered into a drawing for a $50 Amazon Gift Card. Most importantly, your participation helps us to monitor important trends in the workplace.
What is the Difference Between Crucial Conversations and Crucial Accountability?
What is the difference between a crucial conversation and a crucial accountability conversation? I believe all accountability conversations are crucial, but are all crucial conversations about accountability?
Sincerely, Confused Manager
Dear Confused Manager,
Many have wondered about the difference between Crucial Conversations and Crucial Accountability. It can often be difficult to know where one set of skills ends and the other begins. Crucial Conversations is about establishing open dialogue. The skills are designed to create safety, get different perspectives and ideas into the conversation, and build Mutual Purpose. The skills help you keep dialogue flowing in the face of disagreement, for improved relationships and results.
The Crucial Accountability skills build on the Crucial Conversations skills to resolve problems of poor performance, broken promises, and bad behavior. In other words, they help people speak up when others fail to meet expectations and help them overcome barriers in motivation and ability to meet those expectations. The course combines Crucial Conversations skills with the Six Sources of Influence™ for lessons in effective accountability.
For organizations to build cultures of dialogue and accountability, they must realize this: the health of any organization is reflected by the lag between identifying and discussing problems. In weak organizations, no one is held accountable. In mediocre organizations, accountability is fostered by managers. In great organizations, everyone holds each other accountable.
Holding people accountable is about more than just making sure people do what they say they are going to do. It’s about more than holding people to the fire. It’s also about helping others live up to their potential.
The other day, I was watching the movie A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, starring Tom Hanks as Mr. Fred Rogers. The storyline follows journalist Lloyd Vogel and his relationship with Mr. Rogers. Lloyd is writing a magazine piece on heroes, including Mr. Rogers. Lloyd has also recently and reluctantly reconnected with his estranged father, who is dying from a cardiac disease. In a rather emotional scene involving father and son, Mr. Rogers tells the Vogels, “Anything mentionable is manageable.”
That powerful quote perfectly describes the correlation between Crucial Conversations and Crucial Accountability. Crucial Conversations makes a challenging interpersonal situation “mentionable.” Crucial Accountability skills make it “manageable.”
Managing expectations and performance problems begins with our ability to discuss them. Only after we discuss them can we move toward resolving them.
If Crucial Conversations gives us skills to strengthen relationships, Crucial Accountably gives us skills to help our peers, colleagues, and loved ones achieve excellence. Dialogue and accountability together are the bedrock of social health.
The question isn’t “How are Crucial Conversations and Crucial Accountability different?” The question is “How are Crucial Conversations and Crucial Accountability complementary?”
How to Stop Procrastinating with a To-do List Inventory
If there’s something you’ve been putting off, it’s probably time to reevaluate. Justin shares advice on how you can inventory your to-do list to make sure you are ready to take action, or clean that item off your list altogether.
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Online May 5–8
Join us online for Crucial Conversations Training to learn skills for creating alignment and agreement by fostering open dialogue around high-stakes, emotional, or risky topics.
