Who holds you to account?

I would love your thoughts on this one…….

My 12-year-old son had a science test set by school. He came home and we set out a revision timetable using his schoolbooks and BBC Bite Size (this is a fantastic online resource by the way to support the national educational curriculum)

We provided lots of encouragement and painted the picture of how good he would feel if he did well in the test. I also said that if he got over 80%, I would give him £5.00 (well you never know and what harm can a bit of financial motivation do).

I thought we have encouraged the intrinsic motivation and used a bit of extrinsic motivation …. This is as much as we can do.

Following on from this – with the distraction of an Xbox being a constant threat, we kept him to his revision schedule – no more and no less that what we had agreed. I even employed the cooking timer from the kitchen to help measure the revision time.

The results were announced, and he was delighted 84% – brilliant! Something worked, but what worked? After all these years of believing in intrinsic motivation, was I wrong? was cold hard cash the way to go? Was it just that simple?

I asked him what it was that had motivated him. Was it the feeling of doing well?  Was it the money? His reply surprised me, and his exact words were “it was you being on my back about revising, that I knew I had to do it”.

This got me thinking – it this intrinsic motivation or is avoiding the nagging extrinsic motivation?

…. I would love your thoughts.

It also taught me a lesson – who holds you, who hold me to account in our businesses? Often, we plan with the best intentions, but then life gets in the way and the plan gets forgotten, slows down, changes……fizzles out.

At AVN one of the roles I undertake with Members is to help them decide and plan and then hold them to account. I now understand how important this is and the true value of someone being there to hold you accountable. My question is – who holds you to account?

Could having a coach, mentor, supporter in place who will do this be a game changer for you? If so, what’s stopping you?

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