A Lesson in Friendship—and Accountability

My latest email newsletter went out last week. It generated the usual amount of activity with people checking out my new web site. This elicited an email from a friend and associate of mine, Chip Scholz. The email had some nice things to say about my new web site design, but then made some observations. Some pages were not yet finished. I hadn’t uploaded my newsletters to my web site. My last blog post was over a month old.

Chip wasn’t looking to criticize; he wanted to help. He even offered to let me “borrow” some content from his web site to complete my own. Although gently stated, Chip’s message was as clear as it was accurate: I was being a hypocrite. Unfinished web pages and ancient blog posts are unacceptable from a person who coaches people on personal effectiveness and spending their time On Purpose.

I respect Chip. He is a good friend and accountability partner. He showed great leadership heading up the collaborative effort of our group of coaches as we wrote Selling for Geniuses. His words spurred me to a burst of purposeful activity that led to the work needed to finish my web site and write this blog entry.

Be a good friend to someone and hold them accountable to be the best they can be. Just as important, be willing to be held accountable without defensiveness or self pity.

More later—but not a whole lot later. Right, Chip? ;-)

Dave