Why you should try accountability coaching
Why you should try accountability coaching
A new practice I've been doing for the last few years. #productivity #startups
Entrepreneurship or building products in general is hard. You’re chewing glass and looking into the abyss yet no one cares. And it’s way harder if you’re doing that alone.
A few years ago I noticed that whenever I’m diligently tracking my personal progress week after week, I’m feeling better/more accomplished and the time flies slower.
When my friend Vasili (kudos to him, feel free to subscribe to his blog —
) introduced me to the idea of doing this with someone else (in that case, him), and I was intrigued. We tried doing this for a while and I liked it, but we stopped because it felt too one-sided (mainly him doing the coaching, not me).Since then I went on to do this with a bunch of folks — for myself, using my buddies, for my startups/projects/businesses, using my partners/co-founders, and for others, coaching the founders I’m advising (and bringing this whole accountability coaching thingy as part of the added value).
What prompted me to write this post?
Recently, I came across this post from Alex Lieberman asking for accountability coach recommendations:
I quickly shared my experience and was surprised to see a bunch of people DMing me for the template:
So here we are — I decided to share the template with you guys and explain it in detail.
This is what the “accountability coaching” template looks like
A link to grab it for yourself is here.
How does it usually work in practice? What’s your process?
I’ve been asked a few follow-up questions before:
What’s your process for driving great results through accountability?
How is retention of people who use you for goals and accountability?
The way I do accountability coaching is context-specific: if I’m doing that with a buddy, then we have a scheduled 1-1 weekly meeting and each has their own 30 mins to walk through the updates/listen to feedback, etc. The goal then is to pre-fill everything ahead of time otherwise there wouldn’t be time left.
If I’m doing that with someone I’m helping (coaching), we still have an hour but we sometimes fill this on the call. I do the filling work, and the other person does the “talking” work. What I noticed is that sometimes it is way easier for some people to think out loud and “brainstorm” along the way.
If I’m doing this alone, I treat it as the weekly journaling and have another template for that.
Regardless, what I noticed is that this process is beneficial for all people. They suddenly become more aware of everything that’s happening week after week and it’s WAY easier to spotlight any trends, such as “Why am I fucking up this task for 4 weeks straight — must be another reason for this”.
The main benefit though, of course, is in the accountability part. Committing to something while the other person is there makes you work twice as hard on achieving it (and also reporting back). Some people notice that this fact is their main driver for positive change.
It’s crucial to do this only with the people you can be authentic and honest with. Hiding something (or making things seem better than they are) wouldn’t lead to great outcomes — the results would be mediocre at best.
As for retention, I only believe that accountability coaching works over a longer period of time, when you get this a new habit PLUS you get all of the data you’re tracking which helps you to be more objective about spending your time and dedicating your energy.
It’s also healthy to stop and reassess every once in a while. Change the counterpart, if needed. Most of my accountability partnerships last anytime from 3 months to a year.
Here’s my personal breakdown of all of the columns in the template (link above)
Week number
I love keeping track of week numbers!
Week dates
Same with dates.
Grade (0 to 10)
Tracking this WoW is where the real power is — it’s all about seeing the trend which is impossible (or really really hard) if you’re not doing this.
Grade-Expl
Another good question to be asking yourself is — how’s your week going so far? If it’s not an 8 or 9 (let’s face it — you’ll probably never put 10), how can you make one 8+? What are you not doing while you could?
What have you done this week?
Kudos to Elon Musk for inspiring me with this question.
What could you have done better?
Don’t dwell on the past, think about improving the future.
There’s another pretty straightforward re-writing of these 2 questions — “Did we achieve what we set out to do last week, if not, why not?”
What obstacles are you currently facing?
What’s dragging you back? What are you avoiding?
How can you move 10x faster?
Skip 1.5-2x answers. This question is for thinking outside of the box.
What are the driving factors?
What is something that you are optimizing for? The systems, you may call them.
What's your plan/fact for them
How are you approaching these systems and putting them into reality?
What will you DO next week?
What are your plans for next week? Not that WHEN you’re doing the accountability reflects on how to answer this. If you’re doing it on Monday, it’s for THIS week. If on Friday, then for the NEXT one.
What are the 90/10 power-law actions?
What can you do to drive the most value as per Pareto? Or to rephrase — if you could only do one thing, what would that be?
Another re-writing of this question — “What is the highest leverage action you can take? Why are you avoiding it? How can you convert it into something that can compound?”
Strategic direction
Where are you moving in general, and in what specific strategic direction/focus?
Comments
Any misc things which didn’t fit.
Also, if you are to do this with your partners/co-founders around a common project, you might need some more specific/context-tailored questions
Here are a couple I’ve also tested:
How do we feel about last week?
Bringing a bit of emotion/empathy into the mix
What’s our A+ problem this week?
Reframing the “what will you do” in a particular way
What do we wanna measure this week? What numbers are we obsessed with?
Adding the metrics/numbers touch
What do we wanna learn this week to improve + evolve our idea?
Adding the learning touch
What are we looking forward to this week?
Adding something you can get excited for
Is there anything else happening this week that takes away time/energy?
Asking/answering the uncomfortable question.
Instead of the TLDR
Do the weekly tracking/coaching — either yourself or with someone. You’ll say thank you later.
Grab this free template, call a buddy, and try this with them for a month. Then decide if you want to continue or not.
DM/email me if you want me to become your accountability coach.