On Authentic accountability
The two most important women in my life
In my work with a new hospital north of Denver yesterday, one of the senior managers commented that one of the things that struck him most was the idea that people do not feel an authentic sense of accountability simply because we place on them demands that take away their freedom of choice. We feel this when people have faith in us.
Would you rather be accountable to a friend or a contract? Is it friendship or paper that binds two people’s integrity together?
My modus operandi in the world is working with friends. The vast majority of clients of mine quickly become friends and our working relationship almost always deepens beyond the “project outcomes” or “scope of work” laid out in our contracts. With many clients, including those with whom I work on large projects, there are no contracts whatsoever. Our working relationship is based on the trust that comes from the deep accounatbility of friends working together.
For sure there is a place for contracts and paper-based accountability in the world, but isn’t interesting note how much shorter those agreements get the closer the partners are? Isn’t it interesting to note the distaste most of us feel for “pre-nuptual agreements” which seem to reduce the commitment of marriage – a lifelong friendship – to a mere contract?
Contracts limit our freedom of choice, friendships open up freedom of choice. ANd the very best friendships, like the one I celebrated tonight, result in something emergent, something surprising and unexpected and new. It is out of those relationships that my best work comes.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
