What Does Acceptance Have To Do With Accountability?

I talk a lot about the importance of accountability in business and often I am asked specifically what I mean. Well, firstly, accountability is often thought of as being responsible for something, but that's what responsibility means! The truth is that you can be responsible for something and not be accountable for it. 

Accountability is about 3 things: 1. Acceptance 2. Activity 3. Answerability

So, the first A of Accountability is Acceptance, but what does Acceptance have to do with Accountability? You may have heard the saying 'what you resist, persists'? What this means is that when you are unaware of (or in denial about!) how things really are, then they simply remain the same, because you have no reason to change them. So acceptance is about getting real about how things really are, and I mean REALLY. It's about Accepting the Reality and this can be challenging.

Most of us are fully aware of the power of positive thinking. We know that to focus on the negative is not conducive to achieving positive outcomes and so we are all constantly striving to be positive, to look on the bright side and to seek the best in every situation. Now, I'm not suggesting that this isn't a good idea and I certainly wouldn't advocate the opposite! Clearly aspiring to be positive is a far more preferable default state than thinking negatively and focusing on problems.

However, the problem with never looking at the problems is that you spend your time in denial, and when you are in denial, you can't improve things. And this is where Acceptance comes into its own. The first step is Awareness. This means noticing patterns of behaviour that are unhelpful, weaknesses in terms of beliefs, skills and experience and being aware of what's not working in your business. The second step is Acknowledgement. This means actually recognising those things. And this is different to simply having awareness of them. You can have awareness and still choose to be in denial. Only when you have both awareness and acknowledgement can you get to the third step, Acceptance.  This is where the internal accountability is because once you get to acceptance, there is no other decision to make, other than to change things! Get Real!

So, be honest with yourself about what's really going on in your business. If it's not going great, acknowledge that it isn't going great and then accept it for what it is. Only when you do this can you really begin to address it. Ask yourself: 'What is really going on in my business?