Joe makes accountability a literal calendar item. Three hours every month, labeled only “hard conversations.” During that time he asks himself which difficult conversations he’s been avoiding, and he calls those people.
“And I literally on my calendar have 3 hours set aside every month to have hard conversations. I literally it’s just says hard conversations.”
He frames this as “opening the drawer,” one of AOA’s principles: whatever doesn’t feel quite right gets attention, whether it’s about him or someone else. The point of accountability as a leader becomes the simple question, “What are the hard conversations I’m not having?”
The cost of waiting is concrete. Delay a hard conversation and it will have already hurt the team, you’ll be much angrier when you finally have it, and the relationship will have accumulated resentment. Have it as soon as you notice the issue and you get less resentment, fewer problems, and better execution. Joe ties this back to prioritization: hard conversations are high-priority precisely because unspoken “this doesn’t feel good, this doesn’t work” is what erodes connection — and disconnected people are less likely to do the work the team needs.
Related Concepts
- Accountability is curiosity, not punishment
- Safety enables productive conflict rather than preventing it
- Find the one thing that makes everything else easier or irrelevant
- The leader’s job is not to take care of everyone
- Make it safe and expected to say no
- Hearing objections before deciding — even if you decide the same thing — changes everything
- The five-star meetings hack transforms organizations
- Asking for specific help is accountability with love, not surveillance