Accountability can sometimes be a struggle for anyone, because it involves creating long-term habits that people may be unfamiliar with.
The best example is New Year’s Resolutions: the most common resolutions are losing weight, exercising more, and spend less money. While everyone has incredible motivation to follow through, the only problem is individuals expect to make drastic changes instead of installing smaller and easier changes to their routine. Thus, the New Year’s Resolutions only have a short life span.
You can develop more accountability at work if you’re being S.M.A.R.T. about it! That is, you’re measuring your responsibilities to be specific, measurable, attainable, results-focus, and time-bound.
Specific
Focus in on your desire to be more accountable. What do you want to be accountable for? It could be ensuring you’re talking to your team weekly and that they understand what the objectives are. You could also want to improve upon a certain skill or learn a new one. Channel in on what you want, then stick with it!
Measurable
Set a timeframe in which you will work on this habit or plan to achieve it. For instance, you want to be more accountable and respond to customer’s reviews online. You ensure you make it a priority to respond to reviewers within 24 hours of the review.
Attainable
Practicing S.M.A.R.T accountability revolves around it being attainable. Start by building simple, short-term habits to improve your work performance so that it will lead to better success in your career! An easy example of this is taking notes during a meeting. This is a feasible trait that will prevent you from forgetting anything or refer to information you may need in the future!
Results-Focus
Whether it’s to improve your work ethic, becoming more proficient in an unfamiliar area, or developing better rapport with your team, you want it all to be results-focused. Setting expectations is important to reaching your end goal.
Time-Bound
Finally, when will you accomplish this? Have a reasonable timeline when you hope to see results solidified. For instance, your goal is driving 200,000 unique customers to visit your website. To make it time-bound, plan to complete this goal in three months. If it does not work, reevaluate your strategy and campaigns to see how you can get the results you want in the time you desire.
Developing your goals and habits with a strategy will lead to a better success rate, in which you can proudly take responsibility for the improvements within your company!
About the Author
Meaghan Barry is a Social Media Specialist at PCG.