In an ever-changing world, it is important to remember that we can control our reactions and responses to other people and the situations that arise in life. Accountability Now! shares ways we can all learn to become more resilient in the face of change, find greater happiness, and create an environment where others can learn to do the same. Mark Sasscer, founder and CEO of an international leadership consulting and training firm, relies on ten principles of personal leadership in order to teach others to take ownership for their choices, decisions, outcomes, and consequences. While exploring these ten principles that encourage others to be fully present and authentic and humanistic, model high performance, initiate courageous conversations, and mentor others, Sasscer shares not only the stories from many of the forty leaders who contributed to this book, but also details from his own personal journey as he coaches others on how to improve their own outcomes in life. With a focus on building healthy relationships where expectations are timely and realistic, and feedback is routinely shared, Sasscer guides leaders of all types on a path to creating the kind of self-awareness that results in a successful professional career, peace of mind, and ultimately personal contentment.

Accountability Now!

Living the Ten Principles of Personal LeadershipBy Mark Sasscer Maureen McNeill

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Mark Sasscer
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-1221-2

Contents

Acknowledgments................................................................................................................ixIntroduction...................................................................................................................xiChapter One: Thinking Drives Behavior.......................................................................................1Chapter Two: Principle One: Be in the Moment................................................................................13Chapter Three: Principle Two: Be Authentic and Humanistic.....................................................................22Chapter Four: Principle Three: Volunteer Discretionary Effort Constantly.....................................................32Chapter Five: Principle Four: Model High Performance-Desired Behaviors that Drive Desired Results............................41Chapter Six: Principle Five: Respect and Leverage Separate Realities........................................................50Chapter Seven: Principle Six: Be Curious vs Judgmental........................................................................59Chapter Eight: Principle Seven: Look in the Mirror First-Be Accountable.......................................................68Chapter Nine: Principle Eight: Have Courageous Conversations.................................................................78Chapter Ten: Principle Nine: Provide Timely, Clear, and Specific Performance Expectations and Feedback......................86Chapter Eleven: Principle Ten: Teach, Coach, and Mentor-Spend At Least Half of Your Time Developing Others.....................98Conclusion It's About Progress, Not Perfection!................................................................................105Afterword......................................................................................................................109

Chapter One

Thinking Drives Behavior

"A man is but the product of his thoughts; what he thinks, he becomes." Mahatma Gandhi "The greatest discovery of my generation is that man can alter his life simply by altering his attitude of mind." William James "Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." George Bernard Shaw

I begin my seminars by asking a simple question: "Who can you control and change?"

Without fail, people answer, "Me."

Then I ask, "How many of you have ever gotten divorced or broken up, because, at the start of the relationship, you thought that you could change the other person, and subsequently, you failed?"

People laugh. A few sheepishly raise their hands. Once, a woman blurted out, "Three times!"

We think that we understand this concept-that we can only change ourselves. Yet even at these seminars, it's clear that we don't. Rather than face our own issues, we remain focused on fixing the other person. Almost without fail, someone will approach me at the break and say, "I'm really glad so-and-so is here. He [or she] really needs this!"

I'll say it again. You can only change yourself. You can only control your reactions and responses to other people and to the situations that arise in your life. As I write this, the world economy is struggling to recover from a horrific recession. Each of us is choosing how to respond. That response is creating our success, peace of mind, and ultimately, our happiness.

Those who resort to blaming-one administration or another, one financial institution or another-set a trap for themselves. They see themselves as victims of events too large to control, and so they are. They behave as victims, paralyzed by fear and despair, and become unable to perform at their very best, probably making themselves prime candidates for corporate downsizing.

Those who choose a positive attitude, who call on their inner strengths, who nurture a confidence to adapt and thrive, who choose resilience-whatever the economy or life sends their way-create that future. They carry themselves with confidence. Having rejected fear, they are free to think clearly and make sound decisions. That sure-footedness is apparent to others as well.

The good news here is that this means they can find strength within themselves as they respond. The problems of the world don't go away, but they can choose how they manage the impact on their lives. They can reject victimhood and choose to see themselves as strong. They can become resilient.

Let me begin by giving you an idea of how I got to where I am, to this point in my personal journey.

I was born in 1953 and grew up in row house in Towson, Maryland. My dad, Joe, was a steelworker and my mom, Mildred, was a public school cafeteria cashier. My dad and mom worked extremely hard and instilled a strong work ethic in me. Very early in life, I learned the value of hard work and the need for the income it produced. I always had multiple jobs, starting at age ten, because that was what was expected of me.

Unfortunately, my parents were both worriers who lacked self-confidence. There always seemed to be a black cloud looming overhead. The steel mill might go on strike, and my father would have to find other work. My sweet and quiet mother worried day in and day out about what the neighbors thought of her, because, while my father had graduated from high school, she had not, and she considered that a personal shortcoming. If one of the neighbors happened to not speak to her, my mother was sure that she had done something to offend that person. I can tell you that was never the case; my mother was and still is a saint compared to most people. However, her low self-esteem and constant worrying told her otherwise.

Growing up, I heard, over and over again, "What would the neighbors say?" as the reason for me to not do what I was thinking about doing. It seemed as though we were always afraid of something or someone, and it (or s/he) was right around the corner.

In the late '50s, I started elementary school at the Catholic school down the street from where we lived and was taught by the Sisters of Mercy. What I remember most about those years of being in Catholic school was learning to "fear a forgiving God." That was quite confusing to me. You see, I had bought into the entire doctrine that, if I didn't live an almost perfect life (yes, there was the confessional, but it, too, was a scary place for a small child), I would end up going to this horrible place called Hell. Did I get a good education? You bet, but, like many Catholic school kids of my generation, I paid a price for it.

As a result, I found myself both worrying about the future and often feeling guilty about the past. I had learned those things well from my parents and from my interpretations of what I had been taught in school. My sole moments of happiness occurred in sports-on the pitching mound, when I was striking out batters, or on the football field, throwing or catching touchdown passes.

Until age forty, I heard the same voices over and over in my head, telling me that I wasn't good enough, because I wasn't perfect, and that I would eventually fail. Even my father's mandate that his sons get college educations was based in fear ("I'll break both your arms if you wind up working in that steel mill!"). So, I opted not to do the things I loved, often afraid that someone would see that I wasn't perfect at them. The influence of this fear was so great that, even though I loved football and was very talented at it, I opted to run cross country instead in high school. You see, I'd grown up playing sandlot tackle football and had never worn a full football uniform. I feared being made fun of because I didn't know how to put all the pads on, etc. Rather than ask for help, I decided not to play.

This fear ultimately took on a louder voice; I made decisions I knew were wrong. Having run away from several relationships during my college years, I entered a marriage at age twenty-two, even though I knew it was a mistake. I convinced myself that not going through with the wedding would prove me to be even more of a failure. Needless to say, the marriage was.

At twenty-five, I agreed to marriage counseling, solely because it presented a way out of the marriage. The counselor was the first person to tell me what I've come to understand is life's fundamental truth: The only person I can change is me. The only person I can save is me. The only one with the power to resolve my anger-at my parents, at the nuns, at the Catholic Church, at my perceived lack of control over my life-is me.

That revelation came at a pivotal moment. I felt like I had failed everyone I cared about. I was the divorced father of a new baby (a huge stigma in my strict Catholic family) and I was in counseling (a source of embarrassment to my parents). And, despite professional advice to not do it, I made the choice to forge a relationship with my newly born son, even though my ex-wife promised to ruin any relationship that I could ever possibly have with him.

I decided that this new life was one for which I would hold myself accountable. Not to my parents, not to the nuns, but to myself-and, perhaps, for my son.

A new job at the telephone company introduced me to the field of organization development. I began learning more about human behavior and found myself reaching some conclusions. I attended classes around the country, learning about team and organizational dynamics. I completed a program and earned an Organization Development Certificate at the National Training Laboratories (NTL). I also had the good fortune of working with two consulting firms that introduced me to behavioral and cognitive psychology. I will always be grateful to mentors such as Julie Smith, PhD, and Larry Senn, PhD.

From there, I went on to pursue a master's degree in organization development at the American University. By that time (age forty), I had entered a happy, successful marriage, and my wife and I had two more sons. Then, two months before I graduated in 1994, I left the phone company to start LeadQuest Consulting, Inc.

Looking back on my history of worrying and of carrying several jobs at once in search of security, I am still a bit amazed by the leap of faith. As my wife Cheryl says, I had to believe in myself and follow my heart. We had three kids, three dogs, and a mortgage, and my wife believed in me. She still does. It was her faith, perhaps more than mine, that supported taking the leap.

Yet, even owning my own company and doing the work that I loved and believed in, all of those voices of worry and fear still managed to echo. Even with all that I had learned and was teaching, I still held onto the fear and anger.

Then, one day it dawned on me-my father and mother's behaviors had made sense to them; they truly were doing the best they could with what they knew, understood, and believed. They had had different realities than I had. So had the nuns. Sister Mary Boniface, by whom I felt terrorized in first grade, believed that creating fear was the only way to control and teach young children. My father believed that telling me I was stupid was what a father did to build the toughness I'd need as a man. Their beliefs had driven their behaviors.

They had spoken their truths, their realities.

That realization was liberating for me. Once I understood that my parents had been guided by their beliefs, I was free to choose my own beliefs, my own path. It became clear that my happiness was mine to choose.

As you gathered from the stories above, I was a blamer. I blamed my parents, the nuns, the Catholic school, and a host of others for my unhappiness growing up. I've learned since then that I cannot create good fortune by blaming other people for what happened or happens in my life. I can only change myself and my reactions.

If I enter into a relationship with you, planning to change you, I must believe that something about you needs changing, that something about you is not good enough. My ego, my separation from and placement above you in my mind, drives this judgmental attitude, whether or not I am aware of it. Or, put another way: My relationship with you can only be as good as the conversation I have about you in my mind.

Rather than taking the proactive and productive approach of changing myself, I become frustrated in the losing (and, to you, insulting) battle of trying to change you. I set up a self-fulfilling prophecy that predicts failure. I treat you badly. You respond in like fashion. My undesired behavior becomes justified in my mind. The prophecy becomes reality.

You can only change you. If you spend most of your energy in life focused on that truth, including how you respond to people and situations that show up in your life, you will ease your journey. You will find your way to happiness by looking in the mirror.

Hand-in-hand with this is the concept that "my thinking drives my behavior." Each of us has formed beliefs or habits of thought over our lifetimes that we hold onto-sometimes with a death grip! These beliefs act as a filter through which we interpret the events that occur in our lives. Some of these beliefs still serve us well. However, there are others that we should shed, for our own good and the good of those around us. Think of the opportunities we miss when we hold onto beliefs that no longer serve us, when we let what Alcoholics Anonymous calls "stinking thinking" drive our behavior. These thoughts are the true seeds of sadness.

In my own life, it has taken me years to learn to believe in myself. My father's idea of preparing me for the demands of manhood was to "toughen" me with his own harsh assessment of me. In the past, my negative thoughts about myself drove my behaviors and even my decisions. In one case, I let self-doubt and fear drive away what would have been a wonderful career opportunity.

About twenty years ago, when I was working for the phone company, I was responsible for bringing in and coordinating the efforts of a small, but highly regarded, consulting firm, which had been hired to build management skills. The lead partner of the firm and I worked together for three years. I came to know and admire the work she did, as well as the work of the professionals on her team, most of whom had doctorates in the science of applied behavior analysis.

As their work was winding down, she approached me one day with a proposal. She told me that she had been talking with her partners and that they had agreed that I had talents they could use. They had concluded that if I joined them as a partner, the firm would be even stronger.

I was stunned. My first response, rather than pride in this compliment or thrill in the potential challenge, was fear. In fact, my answer was a question, "What would your team think? Isn't this unfair to them?"

Let's be clear. My first impulse was not concern for the well-being of her consulting firm. It was fear that I was unworthy of the chance. As much as I believed in this woman and her firm and had learned to trust the value of their work, I chose to hold on to my old belief that I wasn't good enough. I listened more closely to the echo of my father's voice telling me that I didn't deserve success. I allowed myself to be paralyzed by fear.

Incidentally, my instincts about the high caliber of the firm were sound. Four years later, it was bought by a national consulting group for millions of dollars.

What this revealed to me was the fact that I had deep-seeded beliefs, learned in childhood and, on a conscious level, rejected as an adult, which continued to govern my adult behavior. The "aha" for me was that one's self-image is really about one's beliefs. Each of us has beliefs that have been shaped by what we have seen modeled, by what we have been taught, and by what we have had reinforced in us over our lifetimes.

I am very clear that my actions make sense to me. What I need to remember is that your actions make sense to you. None of us starts the day looking for ways to be hurtful. Yet, we can spend our days interpreting and judging others' actions as inappropriate or wrong. When we remember that each of us acts according to our own beliefs, we open ourselves up to greater understanding and acceptance of others. This concept of separate realities is the basis for Principle Five. We'll return to it later.

Until I learned to hold myself accountable for my choices, I was unaware that my beliefs were so deeply entrenched, far below the surface, that they had been driving my behavior without me even noticing them. The analogy that works for me is the iceberg. When you look at an iceberg, as enormous as it might seem on the surface, you are only seeing about 20 percent of it. Typically, 80 percent of an iceberg's total mass is below the surface, unseen.

Beliefs are like that. They often lie so deep in our unconsciousness that we carry them around without even acknowledging that they exist. It's what I don't see that can be deadly when it comes to the relationship I have with myself, as well as the relationships I have with others. My behavioral habits, the way I treat myself and others, and even the way I think about the people in my life, are driven by my beliefs. As good relationships are key to my well-being, to my ability to adapt and thrive (my resilience), it's important to become aware of my beliefs and their impact.

Some of us have reached, either by example or from experience, a fundamental belief about the nature of life that drives our behavior-positive or negative. You head out the door in the morning to find a flat tire. For one person, the internal dialogue that begins sees the tire as a portent of doom-"What else can go wrong? This is going to be a miserable day; I can tell already." Another person will manage to take it in stride. S/he changes the tire or calls for help, regarding this either with amusement or, once it's resolved, as a hurdle cleared, and gets on with the day.

Imagine each of these people for a moment. See them in your mind. Look at the expressions on their faces. Which will begin the day with more stress? How will that day play out? How will they treat the people whose paths they cross and how will those people respond? That underlying perspective, that fundamental belief about the positive or negative nature of living, is a matter of choice.

(Continues...)

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