In this compelling episode, Robert Hunt, CEO of REF Dallas, shares how he has helped founders and leaders take full accountability for their lives, success, and happiness for over ten years. You won’t want to miss this episode if you have used the words but or can’t in the last week.
You will discover:
– The only way to create accountability in your company
– What true accountability is
– How accountability and responsibility differ and why accountability is far more powerful
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast. And here with us today is yet another high demand coach. It is the one and only Mr. Robert J. Hunt, who is the accountability guy. He is a business owner in the Dallas Fort Worth, Texas area, and helps leaders remove the things that keep them from being their best. He’s run CEO groups in Dallas Fort Worth for over 10 years, and brings that experience and wisdom to help people reach their goals. He is deeply committed to leadership coaching, and this aspect of his work allows for a more personalized approach as well, where he can engage one on one with leaders like you, empathizing and helping them with accountability in the pursuit of excellence. He’s here with us today, Robert, I’ve been on a little bit of a kick here for having guests on to define words that we use all the time, but I have found very few folks can actually define well. So welcome to the show. I’m wondering if we could just start off right out of the gate with kind of 101, what? Is accountability? Give us a good definition.
Robert Hunt
Sure. In the simplest terms, accountability means you own it. That’s the easiest way to describe accountability. And the concept is that a lot of times we think we as business owners or CEOs, we think we own it, because that means we take the blame, and if something goes wrong, well, I own it. The buck stops with me, and that sounds great, but that’s being responsible, and that’s different than accountable. Responsible means that, hey, it’s my business. I gotta, I gotta own it. If something goes wrong, I gotta take care of it. But accountable means that, since I know that people make mistakes, and since I know that we’re growing well beyond what I ever thought we would be, maybe I need to put not maybe I need to put processes in place and to train people, and to plan for turnover, and to plan for when we get past our capacity that’s being accountable, to the result you’re looking for, to the current journey we’re on, to the limitations of people in life. And if you’re accountable, you’ve pre you planned for it, you proactively did something to deal with it, not just knee jerk reaction to respond to it, which is responsibility is actually being intentional to create the outcome you’re looking for.
Scott Ritzheimer
Oh, I love that, because it’s an active thing. I think a lot of times in coaching, we kind of toss the word accountability around, and it’s like you’ll have someone badgering you if you didn’t do what you said you were going to do. And yes, there’s an element of that, don’t get me wrong, and it is helpful to to have someone in this process, which is gonna be a big part of our conversation here today. But what I want to kind of address something you kind of compared responsibility and accountability. What are the what’s the relationship between accountability and a victim mindset?
Robert Hunt
Well, when you’re truly accountable, you’re not a victim, it’s when we look at something and we make these excuses or blame, or we say we can’t do anything about it, or we just wait and hope it gets better that you you’re actually in a victim mode. Nobody says, I, I’d like to be a victim, but by the way they handle things, they actually put themselves in a victim role. And so accountability, being the simplest definition of the term, is you own it. If you own it, that means you have the power to do something about it. It’s yours. A victim says, I can’t do anything. It’s not my fault. I don’t know what to do. And when you put yourself in that victim role, it’s very frustrating. It’s very defeating. But imagine the joy and energy and hope that comes when you realize, Wait, this is mine. This is my opportunity, not my problem. My opportunity to do something about it. You don’t like your marriage, do something about it. You don’t like your sales team. Do something about it. Yes, and we find and we talk about this in the book. The first part of the book is those traps that hold us back, that we go quickly to and we’re normally used to it, we blame, we make excuses, or we say we can’t do anything about it, or we just wait and hope it gets better. Those four things are traps, and we don’t see them as a playing a victim role. But that’s exactly what it is.
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow, that’s powerful. What are some of the the the symptoms, if you will, of that because, I mean, I can’t think of a CEO who is especially in the initial part of a conversation would say that they have a victim mindset, right? These are folks who who would pride themselves on making a living having not done that, and yet it still finds a way to creep in. What are some symptoms that we might be wrestling with it more than we think?
Robert Hunt
Well, at one point you stop listening to people, and you just stubbornly put your head down and keep going. And that’s a dangerous trap. That’s ego. And when you when you get that out of check, you’re in a bad spot. But if you really, truly listen to people, they’ll tell you, and they’ll say, We should do this. And you’ll say, well, we can’t. Well, that’s not true. It’s not that you can’t, that you won’t. We need to fire that sales guy. He is horrible. He’s rude. Our clients complain. The employees complain, we gotta fire him. We can’t fire that guy. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, yeah, you can. And you know you can, because when he quits and takes a job and goes to work for your competitor, you somehow survive, and you find a way to work around it. But you say, I can’t, but you really mean I won’t. So there’s these things you should. For trigger words. You should say, I want to do this, but, well, that’s an excuse. You want to you. You want to look at something that you’re mad at. You’re blaming a customer who screwed you over. Well, maybe if you’ve done such a good job for them that they never went looked for another guy to provide the service for them, and they left you in the lurch because you did a bad job. You’re blaming them. But it was your team that dropped the ball. You didn’t go and listen to them and ask them what their needs were and keep up with their changing demands. They went somewhere else. You shouldn’t blame them. You should blame yourself. So when you look at some of those keywords that we’re blaming or making excuses, those are the symptoms where we see we’re angry, we’re frustrated, we’re miserable with something. Those are symptoms that we’re playing a victim game.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. What does accountability look like in a team environment?
Robert Hunt
Well, one of the principles we talk about in the book is nobody can hold anyone accountable to anything. Accountability has kind of got this negative turn to it. I’m going to hold you accountable. Well, nobody can do that. I can’t hold you accountable. If I say, Scott, you know, what do you want to do? And you say, Well, I’m going to try. And I’m making six sales calls a day. Great. Okay, well, then I call you up, but then we had to go. You make six sales calls a day. Boom, yeah, sure, sure. You could lie. I won’t know unless I look at your documents or I’m sitting there next to you, I don’t know that you’re doing anything, and you have a whole team of people that are supposed to be doing their job. Maybe they’re sitting at their desk and they look responsible, but maybe they’re having a horrible attitude while they’re calling people, or maybe they’re not paying attention to details, or maybe they’re even saying the wrong thing on the phone that this not even the right thing to do. You don’t know. So the only way to create accountability in your company is to create the model where you behave in a way that’s truly accountable. You declare to your team, here’s where we’re going. Here’s what we’re going to do, here’s why we’re doing it, and here’s how we’re going to do it. And I put it in writing and I share it for everybody. Now I can be accountable to what I’ve declared. That’s the whole point of accountability requires vulnerability. But leaders don’t want to tell other people, because then they’ll go, Well, why are we doing this? Ed, get in your lane. You’ll leave me alone. So if you declare it, then you got to own it. So the way that you create a culture of accountability with the whole team is that you model it, and then you give them the opportunity to be accountable. But you can’t make them be accountable.
Scott Ritzheimer
Right, right? What? What’s the role of writing it down? Right? Because I think you you probably had a lot of folks in like, Hey, you got to go act that way. You got to model it. They’re like, Okay, write it down. Why would I write it down? Why is that such an important part of it.
Robert Hunt
When you write it down, it becomes reality. Otherwise it’s just the thought. And if you don’t write it down, you change your mind, nobody’s gonna know. How do people keep up with you? If you keep changing your mind, and as an owner of a company, you can do whatever you want, but if you’re gonna have people play with you and count on you and work with you. You’ve got to give them something to follow, otherwise they’re constantly coming. But do Am I doing this right? What do I do next? What do I do now and then? We hate that. Why you keep asking me these questions? Well, tell me where the hell I’m going, and I’ll get it done. But if you don’t know where you’re going and you’re only going to make it up as you go, how do you expect your people to be self driven, thoughtful, creative, bold, daring. They can’t do that. They’re scared because they don’t know where they’re going. When you write it down, you have the opportunity to be accountable to what you said you’re going to do, and you will put the pressure on yourself to get it done.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, in your book, you lay out several different stages to accountability. I’m wondering if you could, we don’t want to teach through all of them folks who who find this interesting. We’ll give you, we’ll show you how you can get a copy of the book here in a moment. But could you just kind of introduce to us what the stage is? The primary stages of accountability are.
Robert Hunt
Yeah, we walk it through that at the beginning of the book, you are unaware of what accountability really is, because in our lives, we think I got it, I’m doing good, I show up at work, I have I raise kids, I got a house. I’m accountable. You’re not. You’re being responsible. And there’s a big difference. But at some point when you realize, Wait, that’s me. That’s on me. Now you’re aware of the accountability that’s required of you, and it’s at that point you go through four stages, you blame, you make excuses, you say you can’t, or you wait and hope, and none of those things work. We did this in our whole lives. We still do it today. We have to be we’re aware of it more than we ever were. But my beautiful wife, Kathy, and I, we were in debt for $90,000 and that doesn’t include the house or the cars, and it was killing us, but we kept blaming and making excuses and saying, Well, maybe next year and, well, I can’t do anything about it. Well, you could. And what we did is we sold our house and we downsized and started over, paid off all our debt and owned and owned it. So we know how this works. And I do this in my business. There’s, there’s, I’ve seen this example. I’ve watched my clients and the CEOs in our groups do either where they blame, make excuse, say they can, or wait and hope. The ones who own it are the ones who fix it. And so we say, when you take accountability for everything in your life, you gain the power to change anything in your life. Wow. And once you get to that place in your life where you go, Look, nobody cares. Nobody cares if I’m fat, broke, unhappy in my marriage, have a miserable bunch of employees, nobody cares until. I do, and when you declare that to yourself and you truly own it, then you open the door for the second half of the book, which is, acknowledge the reality, embrace the suck, find a solution and make it happen. And that’s the process we’ve applied in our lives and in our business every step of the way. Stop believing the lies that hold us back as a victim really, truly look at it, and that’s why you write it down. If you write it down, you’re acknowledging reality, and you’re letting other people look at your stuff and go, Dude, you’re not broke. You just don’t have as much cash as you thought you should have. Don’t panic, relax. Let’s do this. You can give people the opportunity to help you when you declare it and you’re honest. That’s why we put a satisfaction assessment in the book, where you can write it down.
Scott Ritzheimer
Tell me what you think about this. I have often found that when folks are on this journey, the future is much brighter than they initially anticipated, and the road to get there is much harder than they initially anticipated, not in a bad way, but it’s just, there’s a lot about you that has to change to do that. Have you found that that’s the case?
Robert Hunt
It is, and that’s why we surround ourselves with other people who have been there before and walked it. You know, nothing we’re doing is new problems with people, time cash and tech. It’s all the same stuff. You ever this guy does it. This guy’s got a staffing company. She has a company that does manufacturing. It’s all the same stuff. People, time tech and cash. And so if you are being honest and vulnerable with other people who have knowledge and experience, then go, oh no, no, no, don’t do that. I did this. Here’s what I did. You could do this and this, and we’re speaking from experience. We’re not just telling each other what to do. We’re going, well, this is what I did. I did this. It didn’t work. I did this, and it did work. And that kind of knowledge and experience comes when you’re really vulnerable and willing to let people know, so it talks you off the ledge, and it keeps you from believing some kind of lie that really isn’t gonna happen.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, so true. So true. You do a lot of work with CEO peer groups. Why? Why do you think that’s such a powerful model, and who? Who have you found works best or gains the most from those types of environments.
Robert Hunt
It’s magical. CEO peer groups are magical because you bring people to who are successful business leaders together in a room that’s private. We’re talking through issues, and we’re learning from one another. I mean, you can watch a video, there’s a webinar for everything these days. You can get a book, but what you can’t do is have a dialog with someone who’s been there, who understands the burden that you carry as a business owner, the frustrations you feel as a CEO. I put my whole life, I put my house and my mortgage and my future for risk to this business, and people don’t seem to care at all. The frustration is the burden, the emotional stress you carry. They get it. And so when we’re in the room together in these private meetings and we’re talking through stuff, they understand where you’re coming from. Coming from, however, they don’t want to let you be a victim. They want to encourage you to see truth, and so they’re going to challenge you. Sometimes you need a hug, sometimes you need a kick in the butt, but either way, we know what you need, because we’ve been there before. So it’s really magical. And these groups work best for someone who is genuinely real and open and honest in their journey. If you want to come in and take tell everyone how successful you are and how rich you are and how powerful, we don’t want you in the group. But if you come in and go, Look, I got 38 people that work for me, and I’m frustrated with all of them, what am I doing wrong? Then they can share with you and help you, encourage you. That’s the power of peer learning, but it really does require someone who’s willing to be real.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, fantastic, Robert, there’s a question I like to ask all my guests, so I want to send it your way here. What would you say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Robert Hunt
You know, I wish you understood that you have the freedom to live the life you really want. I think we’ve given up on that. I think we’ve become a whole nation of people who are just hired COVID really kicked our butts, and I think we’ve all struggled to get back to the way we used to be. I don’t know if it’s going to go back to the way it used to be, because I think life and people have changed a lot, but you still have the freedom to live the life you want. It requires that you own it. That’s what accountability does. It brings freedom, it brings power, it brings hope. But you have the right and the opportunity to live the life you want, if you want to, and if you want to, you own it, and you pick it up and you do something with it. To me, that’s what I wish people would understand. Don’t be so discouraged. Don’t be down on yourself. There is the opportunity to pursue the life you really want if you are willing to be accountable.
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow, wow. Robert, there’s some folks listening, and you’ve let in a spark. You’ve led a spark for them. They want to know more. They want to pursue more. Tell us first, where can they get a copy of your book, and where can we find more out about you and the work that you do?
Robert Hunt
You can go to nobodycaresbook.com, and you can order a copy of our book from us. There. We want you to go there, because we want you to join our community. I want to I want you to share with me your satisfaction assessment. What did you learn? And then keep me posted in your journey. We read every email. We respond to every one of them for what I do, for my day. Job is I run peer groups through REF Dallas. So you go to REF like ref, refdallas.com, and then you can learn all about the peer groups. I run the executive coaching, the leadership retreats. I take people on the workshops. We’re doing all that stuff. It’s on that website.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic, Robert, fantastic, fantastic work. I love the clear definition of accountability and all that that can and should mean for us as leaders. Thanks for being on the show. Really a privilege having you here today, for those of you watching and listening, you know your time and attention mean the world to us, I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Robert Hunt
Robert J. Hunt is “The Accountability Guy.” He is a business owner in the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, area and helps leaders remove the things that keep them from being their best. He has run CEO Groups in DFW for over ten years and brings that experience and wisdom to help people reach their goals. He is deeply committed to leadership coaching. This aspect of his work allows for a more personalized approach, where he can engage one-on-one with leaders like you, emphasizing accountability and the pursuit of excellence.
Want to learn more about Robert Hunt’s work at REF Dallas? You can grab a copy of his book at nobodycaresbook.com and check out his website at https://refdallas.com/
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