Crucial Accountability Book Review
My online Summer Book Club is wrapping up over the next week or so.
The format of using a shared Google doc to add our thoughts on each chapter has been a way for people in different countries and time zones, with vacations and other commitments, to engage with the text and with each other. Accepting that we might not all stay on the same weekly reading schedule has meant accepting we’d have limited interaction with one another.
For me, it meant reading each chapter once taking my own notes, a second time to compose questions for the group, and a third time to provide my own answers. Definitely deeper reflection and learning than if I just read it once.
Crucial Accountability is an adaptation of the approach from the popular Crucial Conversations book with a specific focus on how to address issues where someone has failed to live up to commitments or expectations. For some in the group it was remarkably relevant.
The heart of Crucial Accountability is the idea that accountability is a skill that anyone can learn. Using many scenarios from both professional and personal contexts as well as research results, the authors present a model for accountability conversations that enables us to engage with even contentious people in effective ways.
There are a lot of valuable insights to be gained from Crucial Accountability. Many of them are repetition for those who have read Crucial Conversations but there is enough new and specific content to make it worth owning both books. the writing style lends itself naturally to reflection followed by practical application.
The model anticipates the range of reactions people may have to accountability. It understands that avoidance, distraction, and disputes may sidetrack the intended conversation, and provides ways to respond and get back on topic. It also helps us determine when holding people accountable may not be worth the effort, and why that should be rare.
The major takeaway for me is the need for clarity. Most of the accountability failures I see happen when expectations were vague or never truly agreed upon. Assumptions and inferences undermine accountability every time. I need to work on this.
Throughout the book I was hoping for more on how to improve accountability in an organization where it had been lacking or absent for some time. That kind of culture change is always difficult and the need is common enough that a full chapter explaining how best to approach it would have been appreciated. The fairly brief exploration offered in one of the final chapters was helpful, but I wanted more.
Bottom line: Accountability is a need in every healthy organization, Crucial Accountability offers a useful approach to making it better. The reset of September may be an ideal opportunity to start working on it.