Accountability is a word that we hear thrown around quite a bit. Have you ever noticed that the people who call the loudest for accountability are the ones that are typically in need of it themselves? From the church leader who screams about the immorality of homosexuality only to later reveal his own homosexual activity to the politician who beats their chest about family values only to have infidelity revealed in their own marriage. Accountability is important but when it comes to self improvement there is another step to accountability which is the ability to be edit-able.
I ran across the concept of edit-ability vs. accountability in the book 11: Indispensible Relationships You Can’t Be Without by Leonard Sweet. The author talks about the colleague who came up with the idea of being edit-able. The idea is that being edit-able is to be able to accept feedback that can make you better. Are you willing to let someone else suggest a rewrite into a piece of your life understanding that this is done because they care and not for any other reason? As a business owners or an employee we may need help towing the line but we also need to be able to accept criticism that will ultimately make us better entrepreneurs and employees.
We have all worked for or with people who feel that they don’t need help and aren’t eager to take suggestions. Everyone has had the boss that asks you for a suggestion only to talk over you the minute you start giving your feedback. Their asking of your opinion being just a show but with no real meaning behind it. We have all been the victim to our own pride that didn’t not allow us to do the right thing because our ego got in the way. Being open to suggestions and feedback is a critical piece to our development and our work with an outside coach or mentor. The more open we are the better and quicker we will improve and get better.
In the end, we all need to have someone on our team that can call us out when we are headed in the wrong direction. Someone we wont be angry with if they try and edit us from time to time. Accountability is the force that points out when we are wrong. Edit-ability helps give us the road map on how we can get better. Who is the editor in your life? How have you been hampered by not being open to critique?  How can we better incorporate accountability and edit-ability into our lives?