Six on Selling

Leadership speaker Sam Silverstein develops leaders at all levels of the enterprise. From the C-suite to the safety leadership team to the front line, leaders are the corner stone of building great organizations. It’s been proven time and time again that organizations who nurture leaders throughout the enterprise grow faster and stronger and are better positioned to achieve their strategic intent. It starts with each individual being accountable for their part of the organizational vision.

Many professionals avoid accepting personal accountability for failures while readily accepting credit for successes. But those who achieve truly great things in life know that true accountability makes all the difference between success and failure—on both a personal and organizational level. Based on interviews with over fifty successful masters of the art of accountability—including academics, Fortune 500 CEOs, and Hall of Fame athletes—Sam’s book, No More Excuses, identifies the five accountabilities that all truly successful people and organizations share. These principles and traits are the common currency of successful individuals and businesses across virtually every industry and culture.

Howard Putnam, former CEO of Southwest Airlines, says, “The Five Accountabilities that Sam shares will be key in making your organization successful.”

The five accountabilities are:

1. We are accountable to do the right things consistently.

Be accountable for doing the right things. This means ethical execution of the activities that will actually support the goals you have chosen for yourself. If you are managing a team, you must model this skill by doing the right things yourself; you must then empower each member of your team to identify his or her own right things, and you must be willing to communicate about what’s working and what isn’t in an open, transparent way at all times.

Download an exercise (PDF format) to help you determine your right things and fill your daily activities with right things.

2. We are accountable to manage our space.

Be accountable for managing your space for new opportunities. This means being willing to step away from things that are working, even though they may be familiar, to make room for something that may work better. Yes, this is a risk, but it’s one that successful people take—because the return can be positive for the whole enterprise.

Managing your space takes time and practice. Force of habit causes us to repeat many behaviors and initiatives that aren’t what we really want.

Download an exercise (PDF format) to help you think about creating space.

3. We are accountable to manage the process.

Be accountable for managing the process when you hit an obstacle. It is inevitable that you will encounter adversities and setbacks when you pursue your goals. The question is, how will the adversities and setbacks affect you? Will they keep you from making creative new approaches to attain your goal?

Download an exercise (PDF format) to help you better manage the process.

4. We are accountable to establish the right expectations.

Be accountable for establishing the right expectations. The targets you set for yourself will have a huge impact on your actual achievement. How will you set the targets for yourself and your team? Will you set them based on what is familiar or what is possible? Will you set them too high, too low, or in that ideal zone where the goal is a healthy stretch?

Download an exercise (PDF format) to help you establish better expectations.

5. We are accountable to contribute to our relationships.

Be accountable for your relationships and your contributions to them. The human touch in any relationship is the “lubricant” that makes communication possible and empowers individuals, groups, and organizations to accomplish great things. Without accountability for supporting and contributing to the relationship, there can be no true
leadership, and no effective implementation, at the group or organizational level, of any of the other accountabilities.

Download an exercise (PDF format) to help you expand your sphere of contribution and create better relationships.

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Want to learn about how the Five Accountabilities can improve your (or your team’s) sales performance? Attend our free webinar with Sam on April 28. You can also learn more about Sam and how he can help you create an organizational culture based in accountability here.