Improve Accountability with a Simple Hack: Pick a Date
9 months.
That’s how long my client gave himself to make the transition.
He had a key employee who was underleveraged. This team member was “good enough” - but not really.
$10 million in business was underutilized as a result.
My client has been around long enough to know: as much as he loved this team member, it was time to move on.
Conventional wisdom tells us what to do, right? Rip the band-aid off as spoon as possible.
Free up capital to make a new hire. Let the organization move forward.
Conventional wisdom is correct….sort of.
Reality is more complicated.
***
The team member in question was a leader in the organization. So when I spoke to my client, they had the usual concerns:
- I don’t want to disrupt the organization too much
- It will take me forever to unwind this person
- I can’t think about doing this right away
- I just need more time
No problem, I told him. You can have more time if you need it.
Pick a date.
He chose a date 9 months out.
The date gave him accountability: it wasn’t a question of if he would terminate this employee now, it was a matter of when.
The date made things real. Now he could take the next steps to actually prepare for this transition.
But the date also helped him psychologically. He didn’t choose tomorrow. He gave himself permission to put off the decision—for a little while, but not indefinitely.
That breathing room makes the whole thing feel more possible.
It’s stupid simple.
When you have something you need to get done, pick a date.
***
How important is the date itself? Depends.
9 months was probably 6 months more than this client actually needed to do the prep work.
I see that a lot - once companies set something in motion, they move faster than they anticipated.
Sometimes, the timeline takes longer.
In my companies, we choose dates for sales deals. Pick a date for the closing. Work toward that date.
Do the dates change? All the time. Deals occasionally close sooner; they often close later.
The point is that we worked toward something. The date is an anchor. It’s a forcing function for doing the necessary work.
Pick a date - we use it in the Role Map as well. Want to make a new hire? Great.
When?
Pick a date - choosing matters more than being right.
And of course, setting other goals. We build OKRS (Objectives and Key Results) around 90 days of work. Picking the next “date” is a critical part of every planning meeting.
Does every Key Result neatly fit into a 90-day window? No. But you get a whole lot more done when you set up the boundaries.
***
Think about something in your business right now that needs more accountability.
Hit reply - tell me what it is. Then tell me the date you picked.
See if it doesn’t spur you to action.
