The Accountability Partner: Working Apart Together

“The most impactful and under-used tool [mentioned in GRIP] is the Accountability Partner" - Rick Pastoor, author of GRIP: the secret of working smarter - source

Recently I ran a Linkedin poll, asking my network: Do you currently use an Accountability Partner? More than half doesn’t know what an Accountability Partner (AP) is, and only 27% is aware but doesn’t use it. A mere 18% uses an AP. And that's too bad, given what Rick said.

After reading GRIP in early 2020, I started working with an AP. It quickly developed into a habit - one that I plan to keep for the long-term. In this article I will share my experience with having an AP, starting with; what an AP is, what benefits it provides and how you can get started.

How did you get into this?

A couple years ago I read Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen, of which the weekly review is a core part. At that time, I prioritized adopting other aspects of GTD, such as using a (digital) task manager. More recently, the book GRIP by Rick Pastoor raised my awareness of the weekly review and also of the notion of an AP. I started doing weekly reviews, and I was lucky to know someone who was also interested in trying it out the AP part - so we did.

First of all, what is an AP? 

An accountability partnership is when two people agree to mutually help each other make progress on their individual goals. The two people are not required to share the same goals; each can have their own. You and your AP are working apart, together. More on this later.

You and your AP are working apart together.

What are the benefits from having an AP?

When I started out with my AP, my initial motivation was:

To make better progress on my goal(s)

How? By sharing your goals with a peer and by committing to a task in front of them. This gave me the benefits of “peer pressure” - often that’s used as a negative term, but in this case I find it highly beneficial. I do feel a bit of pressure to go and do the thing I said I would do - more so than when I would commit to myself.

There’s research that backs it up too; your chances of achieving a goal are highest when you make a specific ‘accountability appointment’ with another person:

95% – If you have a specific accountability appointment with a person you’ve committed to

65% – If you commit to someone that you will do it

50% – If you choose when and have a clear how

25% – If you consciously decide to achieve something

<10% – If you simply have an idea or goal, you are against all the odds 

Source

In addition, and perhaps more importantly; your AP is there to cheer you on as you make progress, achieve milestones, and even more so when you struggle and need some support. They are also there to challenge you when needed and ask you questions in times when you are not aware that you need them. 

Often, it does not take more than one or two probing follow-up questions before arriving at “I don’t know” - which is actually a good place to be, and a fundamental starting point for determining my next action.

Which brings me to the next benefit of having an AP, which is a practical one; they help me to keep going. On the road towards a goal, you stop making progress once you don’t identify the next action. Making progress on a seemingly gargantuan goal or project can be made small, do-able and 'simple'​ by determining a single next step. Then rinse and repeat, or as Dory advised Nemo; "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming".

Making progress on a seemingly gargantuan goal or project can be made small, do-able and 'simple'​ by determining a single next step.

I know now that I can regularly be stuck in my own mind, and just talking through a challenge, problem or situation helps “snap out of it"​. I really benefit from having another person asking me a couple of questions. Often, I go from “I’m stuck...” to “I know what my next action looks like!” within a couple of minutes.

These are priceless things that I find hard to achieve sitting at my desk just by myself; I really need a human being on my journey with me over an extended period of time.

To conclude the benefits part, there’s the habitual nature of the AP. Pre-AP I would have bits and pieces of these conversations from time to time. However, it was unpredictable when they would happen, sometimes going for months between them. The AP is a way to have those conversations happening every week, and I find tremendous value in that.

What do you do with your AP?

You agree to meet periodically: usually weekly, and for me it’s typically on Fridays. During that (video)call or face-to-face conversation, you both retrospect and prospect. Retrospectively, you share your experiences of the past week; e.g. what are your goals, what went well, what was fun, what was challenging, what have you learned? Looking forward, you share what your intentions and next steps plan to be.

My AP and myself agreed to make a (short) summary in text every week, which ties into our habit of doing a Weekly Review, and we share this via email with each other before our call. 

I find the weekly review to be a powerful habit of self-reflection, but extensive coverage is beyond the scope of this article. For more on this, search for: ‘weekly review GTD’, ‘weekly review tiago forte’ or ‘weekly review rick pastoor’

You work with each other, although your content and context is different - but that doesn’t hurt, as that’s not a condition for an accountability partnership. You’re working apart together.

What do you discuss together?

What you discuss with your AP that's up to you. My AP and I decided to have a wide scope: not much is out of scope. We agreed to remove names of the people mentioned in our stories to secure their privacy. This aligns well with the purpose of the weekly chat: it is about us - not about them.

During the call, which typically lasts for about one hour, we take turns talking about our experiences of the last week. The prompts are the same every week, but the answers vary. These have changed over time, it’s structured but fluid, and they currently look like this:

• Reminder: what are your top-3 goals (for the quarter)
• What went well, and why?
• What did you struggle with and what caused that? 
• What have you learned? What has surprised you? What’s interesting to you?
• What is the next step on each of your goal(s)?
• Anything else on your mind?

What is it like to have an AP?

Earlier in this article I mentioned that the AP is about way more than goals.

The first word that comes to my mind to describe AP is ‘coaching’. The sense of personal development and ‘break-through’ (getting ‘unstuck’) is similar to what you might get out of coaching. Though with coaching there is a coach and a coached one; the relationship is not one of equals and the coaching typically goes one-way. With AP it's equal and it goes both ways.

The AP relationship may sound a bit like friendship, however I don’t think this term covers it 100%. With a good friend, you will have deep conversations from time to time, and you might share That Thing that you are working on. And occasionally, when you meet again you might get back on That Thing. But this is the exception, rather than a predictable rule.

What plays into this, is that in my current life phase (early 30’s), I see a shift in how often I meet with friends, and the time gap between meeting up. Most friends I no longer see as often as once a week. This means that there can be weeks between meetings, and if I would not ask them pro-actively about That Thing, then there can be weeks in which you don’t discuss That Thing with anyone. With my AP, That Thing comes up every week.

In addition, it’s not common to make specific accountability appointments with my friends. Sure, one of your friends could become your AP, however I believe that there is a distinction between an AP and a friendship, which has to do with committing to the weekly cadence and getting back on whatever is That Thing for the both for you. 

There is probably no other person who knows as much about what is going on in the focus-areas of my life on a weekly basis, as my accountability partner.

You can expect to develop an intimate relationship quickly, one that feels ‘deep’ like friendship. In the interview with Christina Wodtke that resulted in this article, she mentioned that having an AP is “...really powerful not only for achieving my own goals, but for deepening my relationship with them.”

There is probably no other person who knows as much about what is going on in the focus-areas of my life on a weekly basis, as my accountability partner.

Similar to Christina’s experience, I also found that by sharing my goals - and perhaps more importantly, my vulnerabilities around things I am not that sure about, or struggling with -  you intimately get to know each other.

In case you have a romantic partner in life, you might ask; “isn’t my life partner also my accountability partner?”. The accountability partner is a role, so yes indeed they could assume this role. However, I feel that there are benefits to having a 3rd person as your AP; they stand a bit further away, which helps “keep you honest”. Plus, another person adds another perspective.

...not to mention that my wife’s tolerance for my geeking out about product management stuff is just not that high :-)

Why aren’t more people doing this yet..!?

...you might ask. I believe that the reason why do many people do not yet benefit from an AP is a combination of low awareness and high friction: 

First of all, the AP concept does not yet benefit from wide awareness; it is not yet “in” popular culture. As the poll showed; most people are not yet familiar with it. 

In my experience, there are parallels to the conversions I had with people around me about Bitcoin in 2010-2011. Back then, Bitcoin was ‘odd’ - and I was more intrigued than the average person, to say the least. Today, it’s (near) mainstream. If only the AP concept would gain widespread awareness like Bitcoin… I hope this article contributes to that, if only for a small bit.

I believe that having an accountability partner will develop into an obvious habit for the many people

I believe that in due time having an accountability partner will seem like an obvious habit for most people, similar to how new habits related to mental well-being (e.g. meditation and mindfulness) broke into the mainstream in recent years.

There’s also practical friction that relates to match-making, as you need to find someone who is:

1. aware of AP
2. wants an AP themselves
3. is looking for an AP at the same time as you are

Then once the match-making is done, there is the phase of determining mutual fit; the getting-to-know-each-other, which can set you back to step 3 if there’s no mutual fit. 

How to get started with an AP

In case you are not doing it already; start doing a weekly review for yourself. This is the material that you would end up discussing with your AP anyway. Here’s a template week review that I based on the book GRIP by Rick Pastoor.

Then, find someone who is also interested in doing weekly reviews or is already doing them. Then simply start having a weekly conversation about your reviews.

Are looking for an AP right now, or have any other question? Comment below, or send me a message; I am happy to help connect people who are looking for an AP.

Further reading:

Wikipedia article about AP

Rick Pastoor on finding an accountability partner