No More Excuses: The Five Accountabilities for Personal and Organizational Growth

Many people achieve great things in their lives. And many don't. But if you look at the people who have made smashing successes of their lives, you'll probably find they all have something in common. And it's not money, or an MBA, or tenaciousness.

Almost all of them, hands down, don't make excuses. Accountability is one of the most admired traits in human beings. And truly successful people have it in spades.

If we want to achieve great things in our lives, then we need to stop making excuses and start being accountable for our choices. And "No More Excuses" shows us how to do that. The book is based on more than 50 interviews with some of the world's most successful people, from all walks of life. Their narratives, plus the author's research, create five accountabilities that all successful people and organizations share.

And, we get to learn how to bridge the gap between who we are now, and where we could be, both as individuals and organizations.

This is a book that all of us can benefit from. Whether you're a senior-level manager or just starting out in the workforce, learning why it's so important to be accountable, and how to do it over the long term, may change many aspects of your life. Being accountable means giving yourself power. It takes incredible self-discipline to live a life of integrity. But the payoff, both personally and professionally, can be profound.

This book is a very quick read, which will make it ideal for those of you who are on the go. The author did a great job of organizing the information, and the book is laid out in short, punchy segments. It's easy to pick up and put down, and you'll probably enjoy the laid-back writing style too.

The author, Sam Silverstein, is an internationally acclaimed consultant, coach, and business advisor. He's the past president of the National Speakers Association, and his clients include major organizations such as AFLAC, Prudential Insurance, and the U.S. Postal Service.

So, keep listening to find out what your dreams have to do with making excuses, why you should examine your near misses just as much as your flat-out failures, and how to get your team to stop dropping the ball.

The book is divided into two parts. Part one consists of only two chapters. Here, the author talks about why accountability is so important, and why making excuses could be costing you, and your organization, an awful lot of money.

Part two covers the five accountabilities of the subtitle, with one chapter for each one. There's also a chapter that shows us how to create an accountable team and how to be accountable over the long term

But let's start by looking at what an excuse really is. The author defines an excuse as a story you sell yourself, and then try to sell to others. He says we do it so we don't have to take responsibility for something.

The problem is that every time we make an excuse, we know we're doing something that doesn't match our values. When we make an excuse, we can practically feel our heart shrinking back inside ourselves, because excuses make us weak. And deep down, we know it.

So, how do we stop making excuses? Well, that's what the rest of the book shows us how to do.

As you heard earlier, the author has identified five accountabilities that all truly successful people and organizations share. You could call them pillars, or codes to live by. Once we start mastering those five things, we'll start to see dramatic changes in our lives.

For instance, the first accountability is that we have to do the right things. And, this doesn't just mean doing the right things morally. This means doing the right things strategically.

The author says that all of us need to define our own strategic intent. Our strategic intent is what we want to do in our life. You know, the big plan.

Many of us have no idea what our strategic intent is. After all, we're so busy trying to get through our day that we don't have time to look at the big picture. Or, even worse, we're sleepwalking through our days, and not spending any time looking at what's important.

The author says we need to stop and figure out what we're passionate about in life, and what we want to ultimately do. Our goal, our strategic intent, should be to focus on this so we can do it with excellence, whatever it is. Then, we need to do the right things that support that strategic intent, even if it's something small every day.

Now, we know that defining life goals may be a far cry from not making excuses. But, as you read through the first chapter you begin to see the connection.

You have to start the accountability process by being accountable to yourself. When you're defining and working towards your dreams, you're holding yourself to a standard first. This personal accountability is the foundation for the rest of the book, so this is an important chapter to start with.

Even if you're not ready to define your own dreams, you can still use this chapter from a management standpoint. Defining your department or organization's strategic intent is just as important as doing it for yourself, especially if you're trying to create an accountable team.

The author says you can define your organization's strategic intent the same way you can define your personal intent. You've got to find the core mission, or passion, of your organization. Anything that supports that mission is a "right" thing. Anything that doesn't, you can avoid.

There are some great quotes and tips in this chapter from leaders all across the globe. By the time you're done, you'll know how to define your own strategic intent, and how to empower your team to start doing the right things as well.

At the end of this chapter, and every chapter, there are two pages of review. These bullet points handily sum up the points made in the chapter, and the author also includes thought-provoking questions here, to help us keep moving forward.

Another accountability we thought was fascinating was the third one, on managing the process. This is what happens when we encounter an obstacle to our strategic intent, but we go ahead anyway.

If you're in management, think about the last time one of your team members dropped the ball. You gave her a deadline, and she missed it without even calling to let you know what was going on. When you go to find out what was wrong, she tells you she couldn't get the right information, and didn't know what to do.

This is what happens when people don't manage the process. They throw up their hands at the problem, and give up.

Accountable people take full responsibility for their tasks. They manage the process to make sure it gets done.

So, how can we make sure we're always managing the process?

Well, we have to start by reminding ourselves that we're in charge. Do we want to be the kind of person who ducks responsibility when things get tough? Probably not. You've got to improvise and create a solution, even when it looks like one isn't possible.

It's also really important to examine our near misses. The author compares this to what they have to do in air traffic control towers. Every time two planes almost collide, air traffic control is required to examine why the planes nearly crashed.

In business, this could be the sales we almost lost, or the defective units we almost shipped out.

Most people never examine their near misses. They thank the stars that they got lucky, and then move on. But the author says our near misses are very important events. The more we learn about our near misses, the better we're going to get at managing the process in that particular area. Our near misses can teach us so much, especially when it comes to what we can do to make sure they never happen again.

We thought this was an excellent idea, simply because most of us never think to do it. Managers who spread this idea to their teams could really effect positive change. More people would learn what took them to the brink of disaster, instead of just writing off near misses as lucky breaks.

Another accountability we need to aspire to is setting the right expectations, not only for ourselves, but for our teams as well.

The author says we have to be really careful with expectations, because it's all too easy to set the bar at what was possible for us. Not what is possible.

He includes a simple story to illustrate this concept. The story is about a salesman back in the 1950s. The salesman wanted to make five thousand dollars per year, an average living back then. No matter what great or lousy territory he had, no matter what sickness or life events he went through, he always made five thousand dollars.

Why?

Because to him, that is what he felt capable of making. So what might have happened if the man saw himself making thirty thousand dollars?

The author's point here is that often, we set the bar far too low for ourselves. We accomplish whatever we expect for ourselves. So, we need to stop selling ourselves short and start setting the right expectations.

We can also do this with our teams, and there are some great ideas in this chapter for creating effective, aggressive, and realistic goals for our teams.

One really useful idea is to identify three outside organizations you can use for benchmarking purposes.

For instance, the author tells the story of a window and door company he used to own. It was going belly-up in the early 90s because it was taking six to eight weeks to fulfill orders. His competition was doing it in two.

The author knew it was physically possible to turn orders around in two weeks, because his competition was already doing it. He just had to get his team on board.

The story is compelling, and there are some great examples of what can happen when you and your team have shared expectations. That is, when you give your team ownership of the problem and the power to figure out a solution. We thought this was a very enlightening chapter for managers. The ideas and quotes here are inspiring, and would be easy to implement with your team.

So, what's our last word on "No More Excuses"?

We think it's a very useful and timely book. Most readers will gain something from it. Whether you need a gentle reminder to stop making excuses, or you need a full-blown course to stop, you're going to learn some tips and techniques you didn't know before.

We also like how short the book is. The author did over 50 interviews for this book. He easily could have included long, drawn-out narratives by some of the legendary men and women he interviewed, but he didn't. Their contributions are in the form of short quotes or paragraphs. So, this is not a book you'll have to labor to get through. The information is easily accessible, and quick to find.

The book has many really poignant and memorable passages. Some of them are quotes from interviewees, others are comments from the author himself. And the information is downright useful, especially the last chapter on creating a culture of accountability. The ideas the author lays out here are practical, and managers should find most of them easy to implement.

"No More Excuses, The Five Accountabilities for Personal and Organizational Growth," by Sam Silverstein, is published by Wiley books.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Click here to buy the book from Amazon. Thanks for listening.