Five steps to succeed with your accountability partner
What can you do to get the most out of your accountability partner? These are the things you should do on your part to ensure that the partnership brings the desired results:
Start by choosing the best AP you can find
You don’t want to end up with an incompetent AP. Start by hiring the AP that meets your criterion. While referrals may be helpful, it is prudent to do the searching yourself.
Social media is one of the places you won’t need to look hard to find the right AP.
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Declare the variables
What do you wish to achieve during the partnership? What are your goals and objectives? Do you have anything special you would like to let your AP know before the start of the partnership? Be sure to outline everything you want to get out of the partnership.
Prepare weekly accountability statements.
Remember, your AP is here to coach you into becoming an accountable person. For this reason, it is prudent to list down the items (accountability statements) you promise your AP to complete before you meet again in the next meeting. Basically, they are milestones or small actions that are part of a larger goal that you need to achieve. You should only proceed to the next milestone after realizing the current.
It must not be a 500-page statement. A brief accountability statement is always better and follows the ACT rule.
A – Actionable: Do you have control over the goals? Are they realistic? Do you stand a chance of achieving them?
C – Clear: The statement should be crystal clear and devoid of equivocation
T – Time-bound: A good accountability statement should put deadlines on commitments. Often, the deadline is the date of the next meeting.
