Why is it so hard to write these posts!? Plus some musings on accountability…

I’m struck by my inability to hold up my end of the bargain — what I set out to do at the beginning of this course — to write a weekly reflection and publish it to Medium by Sunday. This was one of the “requirements” of the Practical Self-Management course, although “requirements” sounds too harsh. This was one of the homework assignments we were given during the first week. We are now on week 5, and if/when I post this reflection, I will have successfully posted 3 of 4, and hopefully 4 of 5 if I write one final reflection for this class. But, even if I manage that I will still have failed to submit this reflection by Sunday of last week.

So… what does it mean? Why have I failed in my commitment to this class? Why is it so hard to be accountable to our commitments? It’s hard enough in everyday life to stick to our commitments, but it’s turning out that it’s still hard even when we have facilitators that we respect encouraging us and reminding us of these commitments.

We all have excuses as to why we haven’t been writing them. For me, my excuses are some swirling, ever changing combo of…

1. I am incredibly busy! I have a little baby running around at home, a busy full time job, and I’m also attempting to have a life on top of taking on this extra burden of the PSM and writing my reflections!
2. I have to prioritize my time because of point number 1 and these reflections just aren’t critical enough to prioritize.
3. I just don’t feel like writing them! They’re hard to write, I’m not a word-smith, they make me feel uncomfortable, and/or I don’t feel like I have anything valuable to say.

But while we all have excuses, that’s not the main point I want to make. I think what I’m getting at is actually the idea of accountability and the challenge of accountability within a self-managing system.

Based on my experience implementing Holacracy at my last company, the idea is that when you’re truly operating in a self-managing organization no one has the authority to tell someone else that something needs to be done in a given timeframe. I can ask and try to influence others to get my request bumped to the top of their list, but when there’s no authoritative power structure it’s up to each individual to own their work and make decisions on what to work on and when. I can bring it up as a tension and tell them that without XX deliverable I can’t do my work which has impacts upstream or downstream on the organization as a while. However, I can’t mandate that someone prioritize my request over another. And why should I have that authority? I don’t have as clear an insight into what they’re working on and the relative priority of their deliverables as they do…

But, if I go back to my original example of these Medium posts, we’re human, and we don’t always follow through with our commitments, even if there’s no good excuse. In a self-managed organization, it can be very difficult to hold others accountable to commitments they’ve made. What would enable us to hold each other accountable in a more meaningful way?

Writing this reflection is helping me unpack this, so thanks for sticking with me through my mental wonderings… here are some thoughts on why it’s been so hard to write these:

• Perhaps the reason that it’s been so hard for me to feel truly accountable to writing these posts is that I don’t feel that it was my choice, I don’t actually feel that I made a conscious commitment to write these. I made a commitment to take the PSM and in turn, a commitment to the work that would entail, so in a way I did make a commitment to these posts, but it wasn’t explicit. (Note: I’m not arguing that we should decide the PSM work by consent, I’m just thinking out loud here :)
• Or perhaps they’re truly not valuable enough to spend my limited time on, and/or at I just can’t see the value I’m gaining from these posts. is it that if I’m managing my own time and my own deliverables these reflections just don’t make the cut? Is that okay in self-managing systems? No one is truly waiting on my reflections to enable their workflow, so I’m not holding anyone back (except myself most likely), so maybe it’s okay if these fall off the high priority list?

But again, those are just philosophical wanderings. While there’s interesting questions and some truth in those thoughts, that’s not the point of this post. I think what I want to close with is simply that it’s difficult in any system, let alone a self-managing system, to truly create accountability. When things aren’t working out, holding others accountable requires a level of confrontation that most of us just aren’t dying to engage in. But without some level of confrontation, we don’t learn, we don’t improve, and we don’t grow — all things that I hope to never stop doing.

As simple as it sounds, I think the key comes back to co-creating a meaningful set of cultural norms or a team charter. If done well, the team charter sets the ground rules for which we all agree to hold each other accountable for. If this social contract is intentionally written and has buy-in from the team it lays the foundation for having conversations around accountability and whether or not we’re living up to our values. It sets the foundation for having hard conversations, because even when we’re not living up to our charter we can then ask ourselves “why”. Why aren’t we living up to our team charter? Is it that we’ve set the wrong norms, that we’re over-extended, that we don’t respect each other, or simply that we’re not doing enough to communicate where we’re at and when we need help to accomplish something? Whatever the reason turns out to be, this set of group norms can serve as the jumping off point towards better communication amongst peers, create respect for each other and each others needs, and hopefully in the end, better accountability to our commitments.