Samuel is president of IMPAQ, a California-based, worldwide consulting firm, that teaches organizations how to thrive in the 21st century global marketplace. His other published works include Creating the Accountable Organization: A Practical Guide to Performance Execution and The Accountability Revolution: Achieve Breakthrough Results in Half the Time with Barbara Novak. Chiche is the chief operating officer of IMPAQ, and a former international journalist, writing primarily about new frontiers in modern psychology. She continues to speak passionately and eloquently on this subject.
In this book, Samuel and Chiche present a number of insights whose foundation is what they call “The Personal Accountability Model.” It can guide and inform efforts to live a deliberate life, an accountable life, one in which professional success and personal happiness are interdependent rather than mutually exclusive as is so often the case. Samuel and Chiche suggest that people usually resist accountability for three fears: blame, failure, and success. They examine each of these fears and suggest how to overcome them. They also identify and examine various “rewards” to those who are accountable. It is important to keep in mind that both those who resist holding themselves accountable those who resist being held accountable by someone else have the same fear. Hence the importance of “buying into” the potential rewards. This is an especially important point for supervisors who are required to hold others accountable for their performance. They must understand the fears and respond to them appropriately, especially in terms of body language and tone-of-voice. Also, they must help those entrusted to their care to understand why holding themselves personally accountable really is in their own best interests.
Of special interest to many readers is what Samuel and Chiche have to say about the “Victim Loop” from which so many people seem unwilling and/or unable to escape. Those who select the “Accountability Loop” proceed through a sequence of recognition, ownership, forgiveness (of themselves as well as of others), self-examination, learning, and eventually taking appropriate action; those who select the “Victim Loop” proceed through a sequence of ignorance, denial, blame (usually of others), rationalization, resistance, and ultimately, they “go into hiding.” They must then cope with the consequences of the choice they made...and many do so by choosing to repeat the same sequence, indeed “victims” but voluntary ones who continue to suffer from self-inflicted wounds, real or imagined. Those who accept personal accountability are often confused and perhaps enraged by those who can’t. Samuel and Chiche’s advice on this common situation (all by itself) is worth far more than the price of their book.
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