From Nagging to Holding People Accountable

One of the many great things about meeting people at conferences and networking is that the inspiration doesn’t stop when the event ends. It continues later, while scrolling through my LinkedIn feed: sometimes it’s just a thought, a leadership gem, or an engineering tip. Sometimes it’s a thoughtful blog post about a hot topic (recently: overly-present MCP servers, or Lambda durable functions). Often, it’s a reading suggestion.

I love books and I read a lot (still not as much as I’d like and I’m actively working on reducing my screen time in favour of good old paper). I almost never read literature or novels; my shelves are mostly filled with books on communication, leadership, productivity, goals, engineering, or the journeys of athletes and adventurers.

So when I came across Crucial Accountability: Tools for Resolving Violated Expectations, Broken Commitments, and Bad Behavior by Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, Switzler, and Kerry on LinkedIn, I bought it immediately.

Unspoken Expectations, Repeated Demands

I’m ambitious, demanding, and hold a pretty high bar — for quality and speed. I’m also direct, sometimes too direct, immediately pointing out what hasn’t met that standard. This “radical candor” doesn’t always land the way I intend. Sometimes I walk away frustrated, unheard, and feeling I am becoming a serial nagger — at work as at home with my teenagers. Resentment builds, and conversations become less effective over time.

So yes, the book’s back cover spoke directly to me:

Broken promises, missed deadlines, poor behavior — they don’t just make others’ lives miserable; they can sap up to 50 percent of organizational performance.

What I really wanted to learn was:

How can I express expectations without sounding judgmental?
How can I create safety and show that I care — not only about goals and commitments, but also about people?
How can I hold others accountable and protect the relationship?

From Silence or Violence to Skill

The authors highlight a common accountability trap: when things go wrong, people often swing between silence (avoiding the issue to preserve harmony) and violence (pushing too hard and escalating tension). Neither works. Silence breeds resentment. Violence triggers defensiveness or shutdown.

Understanding Accountability: (CPR)

The book defines accountability as something that should happen “early, often, and skillfully.”

Everything starts with understanding what kind of accountability problem you’re dealing with. The authors’ CPR model (Content, Pattern, Relationship) offers a helpful lens for diagnosing what kind of problem you’re facing:

Content: A single instance of a missed expectation (“You missed yesterday’s deadline.”)
Pattern: A recurring problem (“This is the third missed deadline this month.”)
Relationship: When trust or reliability is at stake (“When deadlines are missed, it’s hard for me to rely on you.”)

The key rule: start with the lowest level needed (Content → Pattern → Relationship) and escalate only if the problem persists.

This was a big insight for me. If you jump straight to Pattern or Relationship on a first occurrence, you risk overreacting and appearing unfair or aggressive. On the other hand, if you ignore patterns, resentment builds until the relationship itself is at risk.

It also reinforced how important it is to address issues early, before they pile up.

Master Your Story

When a promise is broken — especially repeatedly — we tend to turn the other person into the villain of the story. We tell ourselves stories that label them: they’re just lazy or selfish, they don’t care, they’re simply incapable.

“Mastering your stories” means separating facts from assumptions ( from the stories we tell ourselves) and choosing explanations that keep us curious rather than judgmental.

It’s about telling the whole story, not just our part of it. Instead of starting from blame, we gather facts and enter the conversation with genuine curiosity:

What actually happened?
What might I be missing?

This shift alone changes the tone of the conversation dramatically.

Describe the Gap

To hold people accountable, they must clearly understand the expectation and the gap.

That means describing, without labels or judgment:

What was expected
What actually happened

No vagueness. No character assessments. Just observable facts.

Contrasting: Saying What You Don’t Mean

One tool I found extremely useful — and one I rarely use — is contrasting - a technique to defuse defensiveness.

I used to avoid it because it feel like I am justifying myself, that I am approaching the conversation walking on egg-shells, or worse, that I am anticipating what people would then use against me as an excuse. But contrasting is powerful when used well:

“I’m not saying you’re unreliable. I am saying this deadline was important, and missing it put the project at risk.”

This simple structure reduces fight-or-flight responses and keeps dialogue open even when things are tense.

The 6 Sources of Influence

This was the most eye-opening part of the book for me.

If someone isn’t performing, at least one source of influence is failing.

Your job isn’t to blame, it’s to diagnose and fix.

The six sources fall into two categories:

Motivation (Do they want to?)
Ability ( Can they? )

Each category has three dimensions:

Personal
Social
Structural

Examples that really resonated with me:

“If others routinely miss deadlines too, it makes sense this feels optional.” “If speed is rewarded more than accuracy, this behavior is being encouraged.”

I always knew multiple factors were at play—peer pressure, incentives, organizational values — but this framework gave me a concrete way to ask better questions.

Understanding whether it’s a motivation or ability issue (and at which level) helps tailor the solution:

Make it Easy: Remove barriers and assume good intent.
Make it Motivating: Clarify impact, purpose, and feedback loops.

It reminded me of the “blameless postmortem” mindset: if the system allowed the error, the problem lies in the system.

Agree on a plan (WWWF)

After the conversation, we want improvement. Behavior change doesn’t happen without clarity. To move from talk to action, the authors propose a clean framework that made me laugh at first. The acronym is WWWF. I initially read it as WTF — because honestly, sometimes my inner voice still says: "Wtf, just do your part!"

WWWF: Who will do What by When —and how you’ll Follow up.

It’s simple, explicit, and powerful.

Stay Focused and Flexible

This might be my personal mantra. It sounds contradictory, but it’s often the key to success: the magic lies in balancing focus (keeping commitments) and flexibility (adapting wisely when priorities shift). People often justify broken commitments with “something more urgent came up.” That’s not laziness but lack of clarity about priorities. People think they are being flexible by prioritising something else, and in teams like mine - plagued by low capacity and constant firefighting - they are being kind and helpful (willing to help and unblock others).

The solution isn’t just better tools (Eisenhower Matrix, impact/effort charts), but also a simple agreement:

If something comes up, come to me first. Then we decide together whether it’s time to be focused—or flexible.

Focus and flexibility also matter for the person holding the conversation. If new information emerges, adapt. Maybe there’s a bigger problem to solve first. Maybe you need to pause and come back later to restore safety and avoid derailment.

Final Thoughts

“Hold others accountable by addressing gaps early, focusing on facts, diagnosing motivation vs. ability, and ending with clear commitments — while maintaining mutual respect.”

That’s the essence of Crucial Accountability.

The real value, though, lies in how practical it is. I really enjoyed the last section of the book, which walks through concrete scenarios and how to handle them. The chapter titled “No Yeah, But..._s” made me smile — I had that exact thought many times while reading: _All good, yeah… but this won’t work with my teen, or with that low performer I once managed.

The self-assessments helped me see where I am and where I can improve, and I appreciated the additional free resources:

The book also connects beautifully with other books I’ve read in recent years:

Radical Candor - Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity (balancing care and challenge - the traps of obnoxious aggression and ruinous empathy)
Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life (expressing needs without blame)
The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety by Timothy R Clark (contrasting, flexibility, curiosity)

This book didn’t just give me tools — it gave me language, structure, and a mirror. I read it, underlined it, circled entire sections, added bookmarks and folded corners so that I can go back to it when I need it. When my books look like that in the end, it’s the mark of a truly useful read.