Perspective

What adventures lie on the other side of the crossing?  I am willing to be a little more adventurous than normal.  Maybe.  Okay, so I am not the one jumping up and down and shouting that I want to be the first one on the zip line.  I barely travel out of town.

So why the sudden search for perspective?  Like accountability, perception and the way we view certain things - everything - has been a common theme around me lately.

I never really paid any attention to perception or that perhaps there were different ways to look at things - different perspectives.  I lived by the "what you see is what you get" mentality.  In fact, there have been times in both my personal and my professional past where I have been shown, most emphatically, that "what you see is what you get" vision of life's interactions were grossly misplaced.  As life continues, there have been more and more times when I have realized that it was true.  What you see is NOT always what you get.

A different perspective, or point of view, provides many lessons.  It could be that my view on a social matter was too narrow, and a friend or colleague provided me their perspective on the issue.  Suddenly, I see both sides of the perspective bridge at the same time.  This does not mean that my views have changed on the issue, necessarily.  It simply means that my eyes have been opened to another point of view.  I am now better equipped to discuss my perspective having seen the other side.  The other point of view gave me knowledge, understanding and empathy.

There is also the perspective that I didn't want to see.  Seeing things from another's perspective can serve as hard lessons.  There have been times when I thought I was helping someone in the workplace; only to find out what I viewed as teaching and coaching was their point of view of me treating them poorly and with disrespect.  I thought I had good teaching and leadership skills.  Turns out, I was blind to the other point of view.  Granted I knew the material and the skills better and genuinely wanted to help them succeed, it was my approach that slowed me down and hindered their learning.  Their perspective of me was not good.  It took a lot of coaching sessions with my supervisor and a lot of reading to grow out of the little singular perspective bubble I had put myself in.

I discovered the wealth of information in books, such as How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie and Personality Plus, by Florence Littauer, I was able to practice the skills taught by these revolutionaries.  Amazing things started happening!  My own perspective bubble got bigger and bigger.  Soon, I was meeting people with a newly opened mind.  Conversations went in directions I never knew possible.  I was learning and discovering new things about others, the world and myself.  And to this day, I am still looking to see the other perspective.

After all, a tree is still a tree whether you are looking up at it from the ground or seeing the tops of it from the sky.  

Accountability

Accountability.  Accountability has been a common theme is many areas I have ventured the last couple of weeks - in social media, business meetings, training my clients, networking events.  It got me thinking.  What are my views on accountability?  What are your views on accountability?

The reflection on my own accountability took me several different directions.  The first is accountability to your peers.  I work on a variety of projects, from office administration to event management.  This project variety lends to working with a variety of personality types and management styles.  Needless to say, I work hard to work well with everyone to achieve the best results for all involved parties.  The countless projects I work on would never get completed if I did not have accountability to the other parties involved.

Accountability in business is what I am talking about.  You are embarking on a project, and generally speaking, the project has a manager, to which whom you are accountable for completing the project in a timely and thorough manner.  If the project falls short, you take the fall.  You are accountable for your actions and missteps throughout the life of the project.  If you perform well, you will be given more projects to prove your worth over and over again.  You may even see an increase in responsibility, perhaps now supervising others in the workplace.  These people will now be accountable to you.  You now have many people you are accountable to - your boss or supervisor and the people you are supervising.

As a supervisor, it is important that you hold yourself accountable to your people.  The people you supervise are counting on you to provide appropriate feedback and to be reasonably fair.  It is your job to follow up with project assignments.  After all, it is you that is ultimately responsible (and accountable) to your supervisor for incomplete projects.

At home, you are accountable to your family.  There is a rule - spoken or unspoken - that there should be communication with your family, especially your partner.  It is both of your responsibility to be accountable to the other for communicating with the other.  When you choose to not communicate with your partner, assumptions are made, fingers get pointed, and love disappears.  I am not a family counselor by any means; but I do know what works in my household.  Being open in communication and holding both myself and my partner accountable to promises we make to each other makes our relationship much easier and a lot more fun.

Amidst all the work and home accountability, it is important that you remain accountable to the debts you promised to pay.  Ever get the nagging feeling that you have forgot to do something you promised to do?  Perhaps it's pay back the money you borrowed from a friend.  Maybe you are late on your phone bill.  The point is that you made a promise and became accountable for the debt.  Pay it.  Pay it on time.  That nagging feeling turns into a feeling of gratitude quickly once you pay the debt.

Do you like to volunteer in the community?  Are you a part of a board of directors?  Talk about accountability.  You are now accountable to many other people doing the exact same thing you are doing - volunteering and contributing to the community or cause for the greater good.  It feels good to be a part of the bigger picture.  However, with the increase of exposure comes an increase in accountability.  If you forget or choose not to follow through with an assignment, more people than just your boss see the misstep.  The entire board or service community sees.

I am not trying to paint a picture of doom and gloom; I just thinks it's important to see that accountability goes a long way.  Accountability leads to organizational success.  Organizational success leads to overall success.

Most importantly, be accountable to yourself.  You cannot be accountable to anyone if you are not true to yourself.  If you make a promise to yourself, keep it.  It is easier to keep promises to others when you can keep promises to yourself.  First step, go and do it.  Stop reading this and get going.

(Thanks for reading.)