I have just finished a great book about practicing personal accountability at work and life; this book is called “QBQ!”, and to translate this acronym; it stands for: Question Behind the Question!

I enjoyed reading this book a lot because it is not your ordinary self help book that takes you through pages and pages of explanations and examples of how we should do this or that and how it would affect our attitudes and lives to change what we are doing and so on and so forth.

This book is digestible that I finished it in a few days. The author takes you in a lovely journey of discoveries within yourself that lead you at the end of it to grasp the concept and believe that it will truly affect your behavior, attitude and life in general.

One of the things that I liked about this book is that it is written in a very simple language and without unnecessary long paragraphs. Each chapter is 2 or 3 pages; concise and right to the point.

The most important thing I learned is that the questions we often ask ourselves are as important as the way we ask them and what words we pick to include in them as these words are an indication of something deeper than the surface.

Questions like: why me? Who did this? When are we going to get proper assistance? Are questions of blame and dependency and instead of asking these questions in any situation we face, be it in our work or personal life; we should switch to questions that give us power over any of these situations. Such questions should start with “What” or “How”, and they should contain the pronoun “I” and have an action verb that urges us to take action proactively and claim the responsibility to ourselves. This is what we call “Personal Accountability”.

Listing some of the bad questions we usually find ourselves asking; and ones that we should adopt instead: (BQ = Bad Question, GQ = Good Question)

In Customer care:

BQ: Why does the customer expect so much?

GQ: How can I serve them?

In Sales:

BQ: Why won’t the customer call me back?

GQ: How can I add value for my customers?

In Management:

BQ: Why aren’t my team members motivated?

GQ: What can I do to better understand each person on the team?

In Executive:

BQ: When are they going to catch the vision?

GQ: How can I be a better leader?

The Front Line:

BQ: Why do we have to go through all this change?

GQ: How can I adapt to the changing environment?

In Marketing:

BQ: When will the salespeople deliver our program?

GQ: What can I do to understand the sales reps’ frustration?

In Parenthood:

BQ: When is my child going to listen to me?

GQ: What can I do to improve my parenting skills?

Teenager:

BQ: When are my parents going to get it?

GQ: What can I do to communicate more effectively?

Spouse:

BQ: When will she appreciate me more?

GQ: What can I do to help her out?

The list goes on and on and I think you get the picture now as to how to implement this in your own lives. The point is that the choice is really ours to make, we can decide and choose our attitudes and reactions towards everything that takes place in our lives. So take a moment and ask yourself; how willing are you to get out of your dependency shell and take responsibility once and for all? Are you ready to become accountable for everything you say or do? Are you ready to work on yourself and those around you to grasp and adopt personal accountability?

If you answer these questions positively; then don’t wait and take action to make it happen. If you answered negatively; then maybe it is time for you to start a journey within your soul to determine when and how you are going to start the new path towards becoming accountable.

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