“The question of what you should discuss may be the most important concept we cover in this book…You have to identify and deal with the right problem, or it will never go away. First you have to take the time to unbundle the problem. Second, while sorting through the issues, you have to decide what is bothering you the most. If you don’t you’ll end up going after either the wrong target or too many targets. Third, you have to be concise. You have to distill the issue to a single sentence.”

“Think CPR. The first time an infraction occurs, talk about the content, what just happened. The next time the infraction occurs, talk pattern, what has been happening over time. Pattern issues acknowledge that problems have histories and that histories make a difference. Frequent and continued violations affect the other person’s predictability and eventually harm respect and trust. As the problem continues, talk about relationship, what’s happening to us. The issue is not that other people have repeatedly broken promises; it’s that the string of disappointments has caused you to lose trust in them: you’re beginning to doubt their competency and doubt their promises, and this is affecting the way you treat one another.”

“The positive deviants we study observe an infraction and then tell themselves a more complete and accurate story. Instead of asking “What’s the matter with that person?” they ask “Why would a reasonable, rational, and decent human being do that?” By asking this humanizing question, individuals who routinely master accountability discussions adopt a situational as well as a dispositional view of people. Instead of arguing that others are misbehaving only because of personal characteristics, influence masters look to the environment and ask, “What other sources of influence are acting on this person? What’s causing this person to do that? Since this person is rational but appears to be acting either irrationally or irresponsibly, what am I missing?”

“We’re learning to fight our natural tendency to assume the worst of others and replace it with genuine curiosity to ensure that our first words and deeds create a healthy climate for ourselves and others. When we tell the rest of the story, we do exactly that.”

“Before we dare to open our mouths, let’s make sure we’re thinking about the same topics. Exactly what is the topic of our upcoming conversation? We’re stepping up to a violated expectation, a gap, a different between what you expected and what actually happened. Gaps are typically thought of as violated promises, broken commitments, and bad behaviors.”

“People feel unsafe when they believe one of two things: 1. You don’t respect them as human beings (you lack Mutual Respect.) 2. You don’t care about their goals (you lack Mutual Purpose.)”

“When it comes to exploring natural consequences, your primary responsibility is to help others see consequences they aren’t seeing (or remembering) on their own. That happens because many of the outcomes associated with a particular behavior are long term or occur out of sight.”

“Let’s assume you’ve been able to make it motivating. You jointly discussed consequences, you chose not to back off, and the other person has agreed to comply. The conversation is winding down. But you’re not through. You have to do one more thing to ensure that you haven’t wasted your time. Coming to an agreement is one thing; deciding what’s going to happen from this point on requires one more step.”

“There is no great honor in being a leader or parent who is able to encourage people to continually achieve the nearly impossible. It can be gratifying to be an effective motivator, but the best leaders don’t simply inspire people to continue to do the gut-wrenching, mind-boggling, and noxious. They help people find ways to ease the gut-wrenching, simplify the mind-boggling, and nullify the noxious.”

“Create a bedrock of trust. To establish a climate in which accountability discussions are built on a bedrock of trust, stay focused. Set clear and firm expectations. Stay flexible. End by stating, “If something comes up, let me know as soon as you can.” Finally, when you’re talking with someone who tries to excuse a missing assignment by saying something came up, deal with this emergent problem—this violation of trust—as a new challenge. Never let it slide.”

“For accountability to work, a person needs to know what he or she is expected to do. If the task requires many hands, each person needs to know what his or her part of the assignment is. The “team” can be as ambiguous as “us” or “we.” Therefore, when it comes to large jobs, make sure one person is responsible for the whole task and then link specific people to each part.”