What stories are you telling yourself?

When something goes astray at work, are you looking towards the client, vendor, or even your colleagues to see what went wrong with the elements they were handling? Or do you look in the mirror?

A recent podcast I was listening to featured Gary Vaynerchuk speaking on how we all need to go to accountability school, and I would have to agree that in today’s workplace, most people are quick to point fingers rather than take a good hard look at the mirror.

Where you are in life is made up of the conscious choices you made every step of the way. YOU are the one who’s accountable for what happens in your life. If you point fingers at other people for what’s going on in your life, then you are playing the victim and need a serious mindset change. You need an accountability check!

Here are a few scenarios to test whether you tend to place the blame on others or if you take the opportunity to reflect on how you could’ve done better.

SCENARIO 1

You interview for a potential job, and it seems like the interview went well. After you go through a few rounds of interviews, you’re feeling pretty solid, but a surprise call after the third round of interviews was to let you know the company had gone with another candidate. Which of the options below most closely resembles the first thought that comes to mind?

1. The company didn’t discover my talents, and clearly, they were biased toward me.

2. Other candidates likely had an IN with HR, so they got the job.

3. You could've followed up with the interview process or asked more questions about what would make a successful candidate.

SCENARIO 2

You missed an important deadline, and several stakeholders from the client’s team were involved and a vendor that had communicated primarily through you for the project. Which most closely resembles the first thought that comes to mind?

1. The delay was due to the back and forth of the client because they always had more questions after you sent an email.

2. The vendor submitted drafts that were unacceptable to the client’s standards, so you had to provide several rounds of feedback and guidance.

3. You should have provided a more thorough brief for the vendor with clear expectations of what the standards were for the deliverables. You could have minimized the string of emails by hopping on a call with all parties to clarify the issue.

SCENARIO 3

One of your direct reports made a glaring mistake on a client campaign and now the client is furious. What do you do?

1. Tell your direct report to call the client to apologize and take the blame.

2. Call the client to apologize and mention that it was your direct report who had made the mistake.

3. Call the client to apologize, say that they have your personal guarantee that it will never happen again, and say it was your fault for not watching the project more closely.

This last scenario is interesting because even though you weren’t directly a part of the campaign, the fact that your direct report made a mistake means you had let go of your responsibility and involvement in the campaign too early; you had misjudged their ability to handle the project alone, so you are still accountable for their mistakes.

Need I go on? If you chose options other than #3 in each scenario, then you are more comfortable pointing fingers than taking accountability for your actions and decisions. You may often think things are out of your control, but in most cases, you could have taken steps to avoid the worst-case scenario.

Another important tip is that when things go wrong, the first thing you do isn’t to find out whose fault it is, but to think of a plan to resolve the issue. In a business, you are a team, and you must understand that throwing someone else under the bus doesn’t achieve anything; pulling the team together to resolve the problem does.

It’s time to step up and take responsibility for your work. With tough times ahead for the economy as rates are still expected to rise, companies are feeling the crunch, and this will slowly yet inevitably trickle down to issues like employee recruitment and compensation. You can get a headstart at making yourself an actual valuable addition to the team by taking charge of your impact at work.