Responding to False Accusations is Part of Crucial Accountability
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Overview
When you work with different people, there are high chances that sometimes you might not agree on something or feel neglected and left out. An employee might feel that the other employee didn’t include him in an important decision-making process. But, the other person feels that he took everyone’s input into consideration and then made the final decision.
Have you ever been falsely accused at the workplace? If yes, we know how difficult it can be to handle that situation and explain yourself to others. Here’s how you can respond to false accusations in a proper way and maintain crucial accountability at work.
The first and foremost thing that you need to realize is that high stakes are involved – potentially the project and the working relationship of the organization. You need to tread carefully and choose the most appropriate option.
Option 1 – The First Step in Holding a Crucial Accountability Session is to Prioritize the Incident
Find enough mutual purpose and respect to create a safe environment in which you can talk about the incident. The main problem is that you don’t agree with the facts. In teams where there is little trust or where processes are involved, numerous steps tend to become more demanding. Individuals have to spend more time writing the commitments down. Doing so makes the facts clear, and people don’t have to rely just on their memory to complete the designated tasks.
If you and your team members had a Performance Management Training like this, a lot of facts would be clear, and there would be fewer chances of ambiguity. One must understand that writing down all the commitments is not an effective solution. What will help employees is an open dialogue that can minimize assumptions and frustrations. Take the incident as your top priority and solve it as soon as possible so that you can move past it and be back on your work.
Option 2 – Get Clarity: The Second Major Step in Holding a Crucial Accountability Conversation
Start this conversation in a positive and reassuring way. The two employees who have differences should focus on how they can go forward rather than just dwelling on past grudges. Make sure you empathize and respect the other person, remove all biases, and listen to them patiently. The purpose of having a dialogue is to clear disagreements, make better decisions, and take committed action. By using this one incident as learning, you can make sure not to repeat the same mistake in the future.
Once you’ve resolved the current situation, it is best to describe the rules and expectations for the future as well. Also, take into account a situation of conflict and how you are planning to resolve it in the future. The best solution is to discuss how to foster strong relationships in the future rather than keeping old grudges and making things worse. You should be open to communication and feedback, and the same goes for your colleagues as well. Building crucial accountability at work cannot be done in a day. It takes a lot of time and effort.
The aim is not to solve every incident but to develop a process that helps anticipate problems and deal with them in a rational way.
Source – https://bit.ly/2oNYasJ
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