Culture Focused Practice

Okay, here's a hot take. You can call someone on their bullshit without being a dick about it.

I am Dr. Tara Vossenkemper and you are listening to the Culture Focused Practice podcast. Thank you as for usual, for being here with me, for tuning in for listening. I appreciate it.

Okay, so. Accountability should not feel like a public flogging or a public lesson in humiliation. It should be about bringing people back into alignment, and that can be done with clarity and respect and just like a little bit of discomfort. Discomfort shouldn't be the main ingredient.

It's just uncomfortable being held accountable. It is so we, you know, account for that little bit of discomfort without making that be the main component to our accountability.

The point of this episode is to really dig into how do we address what's off without shaming or sugarcoating or pretending everything is fine when it's not. and

And before we go further, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can stay up on all the episodes we get into things like conflict and culture and leadership and everything about making sure that you keep the humanity in the business that you're running.

And let's set some parameters real quick for the episode. So we'll do three main agenda items and then wrap it up.

Agenda item number one is why shame kills accountability. Agenda item number two is what accountability really means. And agenda item number three is how to hold standards with respect.

And so here we go. Item number one, why shame kills accountability. I feel silly even talking about this because it seems so obvious, but I'm gonna talk about it anyway.

Let's think about what shame does. It makes people hide. It makes people defend. It makes people retaliate. It is a distinctly uncomfortable sensation to feel shame in your body. And when you are in that state, unless you are in a safe space and and environment, you're not going to address it. You're not going to expose this thing.

So, that means as leaders, our job is to try to not create shame in people when we're holding them accountable. I'm getting ahead of myself.

My point remains the same.

Shame is going to block any sort of conversation that needs to take place. Nothing changes if a person is just trying to survive this onslaught of shame.

Let's think about how this plays out. So let's say something happens in a team meeting and a person, I don't know, does or says something that is wrong. It's just they are saying that a process goes one way and they're really mistaken, or they're misrepresenting something that was said in a previous meeting or interaction or who knows what. They basically, they're doing something wrong.

For whatever reason, what you decide to do in the middle of that meeting is to strongly correct them in such a way that you are bringing them down. So maybe you say something like, Jane, can you just stop talking? You don't know what you're talking about. Or maybe you say something like, well, you know Jane, if you'd actually been listening in the last meeting, you would understand why that wasn't right.

First of all, what fucking leader says things like that if you do, I almost said no judgment, but actually no, a little bit of judgment. Those are all condescending responses, and they're ineffective because what we're doing is we are publicly humiliating this person.

Which doesn't just result in shame for them. likely. I mean, I'm making broad brush stroke statements here, so of course some people might hear that and then fight right back or say something snarky back to you.

But let's say your comments or snarky, little quips result in shame for Jane. What you're also doing is feeding into a culture of mistrust and eroding safety. Not just for Jane, for every single person who just bore witness to what happened.

Sure, yes. Maybe that fixed the problem, and that you're then able to say, this is the actual process that we need to follow, or this is the thing from last meeting that we decided.

But that has nothing to do with the psychological safety and emotional reactions of the team around you, the team who just saw what took place, saw what transpired.

There are plenty of ways that you can address something and correct it without being a dick. There are plenty of ways you can respond to a person who is saying something wrong without making them feel shitty and without leaving your team feeling mistrustful of you and also not safe to probably speak up at that point, which feeds into culture and. Team cohesion and a whole host of other things.

I always end up thinking about authority and power dynamics in this sort of conversation and in this thought process because there's something in this for me, there's like some axes that are involved in this, and I have not fully fleshed this out, so I don't even exactly know how it looks or what it is, but there's something about fear and control and dominance.

Like there's something about all of these things living together. And it seems like there's people. Leaders, owners, visionaries, people who are in charge, who think that if people don't listen or haven't understood something or aren't doing something the correct way or following the right process, it's almost like they're taking it personal. It's an active affront to me as the leader. Like how dare you not listen.

And then I have to like strongly correct you to get you back in line or something. There's something about like this dominance piece.

And I just keep circling back to this notion that you could be in charge and still be gentle and still hold a line and hold a boundary and hold people accountable. That these things are not mutually exclusive.

They exist together, I would say they should exist together. That being in charge and holding people accountable should actually come with something like gentleness, candor, kindness, firm boundaries, while also taking into account the whole other person that you're connecting with or that's in this conversation or relationship with you.

I think ultimately real accountability, like true accountability starts from a place of dignity and doesn't have anything to do with dominance.

And I think that's actually a good segue into agenda item number two, what accountability really means.

For me, I think there still is this, I don't know about cultural narrative, but a strong enough narrative that accountability is like holding someone's feet to the fire and getting them on the hot seat, making sure they get shit done. Like there's something in it that's, I don't wanna say aggressive, but real, like forceful and like intense fiery sort of energy.

And sure. I mean, sometimes yes, I think that there is a need to hold a person's feet to the fire. And really try to have like a, a hard conversation with that person. Fine.

But I think that in most cases, accountability can really be seen as a feedback loop. It doesn't need to be a punishment. We want it to be a constant feedback loop happening. So it's just part of how we operate, not something that's done to another person.

It's not this duality based, right, wrong, black, white. Listen, because I said so. That's not what it is. It's really about we both have ownership in this outcome.

We might not be equal part collaborators. I might be your boss. I might chart the vision, but the reality is that if you're here, you are invested to some extent. And so therefore, we both have some skin in this game, and we both then own some of the outcome.

If a person isn't doing something or hasn't, let's say done a process right, or like in the case of Jane voiced something incorrectly or understood it the wrong way, or misrepresented something that was said.

There is some level of ownership on Jane's part. What exactly? Who knows? That would need the nuance of a much more detailed example. The ownership on my part might be how I respond, what training I have done with regard to that process, and maybe some sort of reflection on my comfort with people not understanding something the way that I intended. Or there's something about like a wire or a couple wires were crossed here, and some of that might be on me, and some of that might be on you.

So if we stick with Jane, let's just keep going with Jane as the example. You know, maybe she speaks up in the meeting instead of me saying something snarky to shame her. Well, if you were listening last meeting, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Instead, I might say, okay, so I think that maybe what I tried to share last meeting didn't land correctly.

Jane, what I'm hearing you say is X, Y, Z. What I intended from last meeting was A, B, C, so the takeaway should have been blah, blah, blah. I am not shitting on Jane 'cause she didn't get it right.

Instead I am saying like, Ooh, hang on a second. That's actually not it. Maybe that was me. That's me taking some ownership. It doesn't fucking matter if I said it right or not, it didn't land. And if I'm trying to communicate with people, part of communication is ensuring that the content is received in the way that it was intended.

So if I shared something and then I didn't check in to make sure that it made sense in the way that I wanted it to make sense, that is on me. And ultimately, if I can handle it in that way, in this meeting, what I'm doing is letting everybody know. Indirectly, of course this isn't like me saying it out loud to them that it doesn't matter that Jane misremembered. I'm just gonna clarify real quick so we're all on the same page now.

And maybe the mistake is actually mine to own, which, you know, we're all human. Let's keep moving forward and do this the right way. So much nicer. So much easier. So much safer for people.

If, however, let's just add a little caveat to this whole thing. If every single meeting Jane is misremembering or misrepresenting something that was said previously, that's now a separate conversation.

And so that would turn into a little bit more digging with Jane to figure out what the hell is actually going on because this has happened three times as a pattern. So if it happens three times now, we've got pattern behavior and I need to get to the bottom of it. Still not gonna shame her, still not gonna shame Jane in the middle of a meeting, but I am going to address this offline.

Even then, some of that ownership might be, Jane, what do we need to do so that the message is landing in the way that it's intended? How about at the end of each meeting I have you recap what you understand, not just for yourself, but also for the whole team.

Then that way I'm sort of ensuring that you are getting it, but also it ends up being valuable for everybody there. So again, that's a way of inviting Jane to be engaged in a process that benefits her, us, and also the entire team.

I do think we should keep getting into some examples of how you might do this or may be some strategies or steps you should hold. Let's move on to agenda item number three. So how to hold standards with respect.

When we're talking about holding standards with respect, we're talking about the dignity over dominance approach to holding people accountable. We're talking about clarity and insight versus punishment.

So there's a couple things. One is starting with clarity, so people are not able to meet expectations that they don't understand. And if we think back to the Jane example, clearly there's a breakdown in understanding happening somewhere.

In terms of understanding the content of what's being said in a meeting. And maybe I say, you know, my expectation is that we all walk away from meetings on the same page. It's not helpful that we get to a meeting and then we are unsure or misremembering what was said from the previous time we met.

So if I'm saying that to Jane and I'm saying I really need same page ness from meeting to meeting, that is me clarifying an expectation.

I think the other piece here is that the. I need to understand what's going on.

And so my natural inclination is that if I'm having a conversation with somebody and there's some level of accountability is taking place, like this is an accountability oriented conversation, I am almost always like, it is rare for me not to start with questions.

I want to know from the other person what is going on. Not in a, I'm not fucking feigning compassion. I am genuinely curious about what is happening for this other person because I have zero idea of where to offer clarity, of where to help support, of how to step in to ensure that the same thing doesn't keep happening.

I do not have a path to take unless I have information from the person about their own internal state. What is happening inside your body and brain that this thing keeps occurring over and over?

And that requires, from my perspective, this is my own strong opinion that requires actual curiosity about the person in front of you. So if we get curious about them, we get feedback about what's going on for them.

And if we're sticking with Jane, maybe she says something like. I cannot stay focused in a virtual meeting. I zone out. It's really hard for me to stay engaged. I'm just really struggling. We talk through this whole meeting, but then I get confused about what the takeaways are or what the hell ever.

We get input from her first, and then we set different expectations, which also might mean for the record, of course, there's expectations for the person, just to make sure, like you know what is expected of you out of this.

But if Jane tells me I get really lost in the weeds of the meeting and I just don't remember what the takeaways are. How much of an easy fucking fix is that? Cool. Then at the end of each meeting, let's recap our takeaways. Let's make sure, okay, cool, here are the key points of what we talked about. Here's what we do next.

Which is actually fantastic because in the meeting you have with this person, we're trying to hold standards with respect. Of course, we're doing clarity, we're doing curiosity. What we also do is we say, what is the next step?

What's the next thing we need to do? What's the next step you'll take? If we are talking about accountability, we are talking about doing things differently. This isn't just a conversation that is ongoing, you know, this perpetual conversation about what's hard. Okay, thanks. It's hard to do this. Okay, got it. It's still hard. Okay, great. Thanks for the information.

No. Accountability is saying I have these expectations. I want them to be met. What do you need? How do we do this? Okay. What can you commit to next? It's it's forward motion.

I think one other piece to holding standards with respect is if you need just like one little mental tweak, and maybe you already do this, and if you do, kudos and if you don't, all right. Here we go. Think about these types of conversations, accountability based conversations as collaborative. Think about them as we are seeking to fix this together.

Which does not mean I own the entire thing, and it might not mean the other person owns the entire thing. It does mean we both have information that needs to be brought together. We need to look at it together and figure out how do we do this differently moving forward, because the ball is right here, but we actually need it over here.

That's where you come in because you say where the ball needs to be. These are the expectations, and right now this is what's happening. So how do we go from here to there?

The input from the other person about their internal state is really helpful in informing how that takes place. One, it could be helpful for that person to share what's going on. And then two, if you get that information, like I said, it's helpful in informing what you might do differently or what they might do differently moving forward to move that ball from here to there, which is where we want it.

And if nothing else, leave with this. Accountability is not about shame. It's about standards. Clarity, expectations, curiosity, clear standards. If people feel respected, largely speaking, they will strive to meet the expectations that you have.

On that note, my friends, we are wrapping up.

If you want more content conversations, thoughts, frameworks, feelings, et cetera about leadership and culture and conflict, and people and business and fallibility, make sure you subscribe because then you just get to stay up on any of the episodes that are dropping next.

And as per usual, thank you for spending time with me. You know how much I value you time. And I really appreciate you spending some with me, so that's all I got. I'll see you on the next one. Thanks. Bye.