Are You a Boomerang? How to Be Wildly Accountable

How to Be Wildly Accountable- Are you a Boomerang? Do you consider yourself accountable? If so, how do you think you measure up in the Boomerang measurement system? What is that, you ask me? Well, let me explain a bit further on how to rate this scale and how it works.

The Boomerang-

The Boomerang, the word itself is an adaptation of the word ‘wo-mur-rang’ used in the now-extinct Aboriginal dialect. This weapon is synonymous with the indigenous Aboriginal people of Australia and is steeped in the history of the country’s origin. With steeped history, it is no wonder why the colorful angled pieces of art are littering the Australian souvenir shops and walls of your favorite Outback Steakhouse.

While the boomerang imagery and commercialization make it a brand icon of Australia, the boomerang has been found in many ancient cultures in Egypt, Europe, and North American. Even the famous Pharaoh of Egypt, King Tut, had a prize collection of trophy boomerangs buried with him in his tomb. A boomerang was discovered in Poland made of mammoth tusk dating shows to be 30,000 years old.

There are two types of boomerangs categorized as ‘returning boomerangs’ and ‘straight flying.’ While ironically both are referred to as throwing sticks, the straight flier is mostly considered the ‘throwing stick.’ However, for this post, we are going to focus on the returning boomerang.

The Origin of the Boomerang Measurement System-

When I was a young boy, outside of the usual fixation on toy guns, slingshots, and bows I took a liking to two primitive weapons. While my favorite was the sling and flat stone weapon teenage King David used to part Goliath’s giant unibrow. I mean, how can you go wrong with the story associated with the sling. David is a small boy delivering flatbread and cheese to his brothers. The nine-foot bully is mouthing off about God. David picks up a couple of skipping stones, winds up, lets it fly, unibrow split, and triple Yahtzee you become King.

That story aside, the sling was not optimal for a small New Jersey backyard and would be heck on windows. So, I focused more on my second favorite, the boomerang. As the younger brother, the sound of a defensive weapon I could throw from a distance and have it return sounded legit.

So, while the need for a defensive weapon subsided, I always found the boomerang intriguing. Then one day early in my career, one of my peers brought something back to be completed at a record pace. I thought to myself, wow, that guy was like a boomerang. From the realization that day forward, I had measured people on the level of an effective boomerang.

Evolution of the Boomerang Measurement-

As my career progressed, I noticed there were levels of accountability and thus levels of boomerangs. Then one day, I heard an adage or joke, “What do you call a boomerang that won’t come back?” The punchline is clear; it is simply “a stick.”

“Of course,” I thought, “that is it!” Like a one (stick) to ten (ultimate boomerang) scale, with ten being the highest rating, the boomerang scale measured a person’s accountability level.

The boomerang paints this picture of a miraculously dynamic masterpiece carved into a flat, perfectly tuned weapon, ready to knock someone out at long distances, then ‘SNAP’ right into the thrower’s hand. Mission complete, the job is done, wrong-doer out cold!

Versus

The cold, lifeless, in-the-way rake up with the leaves is not good for anything except maybe as a fire starter stick. Plain, boring, trip hazard, point of frustration of the common stick.  

Thus the measurement system began to take shape. The measurement baseline is founded on one’s ability to be given a task, work item, project, or next action step. Once completed, bring it back to you as completed at or before the given timeline.

Additionally, this measurement includes the person’s reliability and dependability of expected execution. The evaluation captures the quality of what they deliver, any re-work, and the overall completion of the task.

Work or in personal life, the measurement is position or role agnostic. You can measure a direct report, peer, internal support resources, internal or external customer, or even your boss. A person’s ability and velocity to return something to you as complete in a dependable manner with high quality and reliability makes them a boomerang or a stick.

Sticks Are Not Bad People-

Before we dive into how to be a wildly accountable boomerang, I want to point out that sticks are not bad people. I have often pondered whether being a boomerang or stick is nature versus nurture. After working with many boomerangs, I have found the answer to be “Yes!” There are some people inherently wired to be either responsive or procrastinators. This trait tends to start with the propensity to take risks. Now, you could argue those could be traits someone is taught as well. So without a degree in psychology, I will leave this point up to Jordan B Peterson to figure out.

So back to sticks are not bad people. I believe that most stick categories are people in need of coaching, habit creation, or motivation. There are very few people on this earth who truly love. They are procrastination-prone. I have found over ninety percent of all sticks are what I call ‘Faux Sticks.’ Meaning, once I start coaching them or cover the Boomerang Measurement System, they mysteriously work their way to becoming at least a low-level boomerang.

I can tell you; some funny stories of people who identified as sticks when I covered the system. The ‘Oh POOP, I am a stick’ look on their face or even saying it aloud is humbling.

Managing Sticks Into Boomerangs-

If you are a leader or rely on others to get your projects done at work or in life, it is critical to be surrounded by accountable people. So when you identify someone as a stick or non-responsive to task completion, you can not just fire them. You need to manage all the resources you have because in life, “Sticks” happen!

To manage sticks, first, you need to state or verbalize your expectations. For me, I cover this methodology and ask each individual to self-evaluate if they are a boomerang or not. This usually makes them not want to get caught being a stick.

However, sticks will still be sticks until you correct the behavior. So when you send out a task or ask of the stick, set a reminder in your calendar the day or two before the task is due. Then send an email, call, or text to the person saying, ‘Hey _____, do not forget your step is due XYZ day.’ This way you do not miss your deliverable date.

Tip:

When you have a group setting or review period you may want to cover, you have to remind your sticks via email or text. The stick will start to notice, “Hey, wait a minute. My boss always sends me reminders. Wait, I am a stick!”

How to Be Wildly Accountable-

Five Ways to Become a Boomerang-

The next few points are truly how you can maximize your workplace effectiveness and personal life. They are questions and methods I create in my coaching sessions. If you can identify how you function and set up cadenced habits, you will see a marked difference in your performance.

1. Do a Self-Evaluation- Are you a Boomerang or a Stick?

In life, it is important to know yourself and how you operate. Improvement will not come without being humble about your strengths and your weaknesses. In this exercise, write down a few questions to answer completely truthfully.

First, how well do you listen when someone is laying out what needs to be done? Do you ever miss items or steps of the task? Boomerangs capture the entire task at hand with all the elements needing to be completed.

Second, do you set personal timelines to get the tasks done? Do you set timelines to have your tasks done days or hours before the deadline? Boomerangs know their task is critical to the larger scope and set a timeline ahead of schedule.

Third, has anyone had to remind you to get things done? Have you ever received comments about the missed tasks? Or do you know you procrastinate? Boomerangs not only get things done, but they also broadcast the task is on track.

Finally, do you deliver things ahead of schedule? On average, are your tasks delivered before someone asks, a little early, on time, or late? Boomerangs strive to be as ahead of schedule as possible with on-time being late.

2. Crush the Trivial-

As I have said before, if there is no time, there is no success. To be an optimally functioning boomerang, you can not be tripping on the day-to-day. So put in cadence knocking out trivial administrative tasks early and often. In his book Getting Things Done, David Allen said if a task takes two minutes, do it! Personally, I strive to push my entire organization to have this built in the “DNA” fabric of the organization.

3. Understand the Priorities-

If you want to learn how to be wildly accountable, you need to understand the priorities around you. At work, this is understanding the mission of your company, organization, your leader and how your work fits into it all. At home, what are the priorities of your life? Your spouse, friends, hobbies, lifestyle, and how do you impact those areas.

Once you understand the priorities of those areas in your life, you now know where to apply your boomerang responsiveness. For instance, your boss requires you have your sales booked by the 15th of each month. Understand it is because he or she needs to have the sales closed by month-end. So make sure you book your sales no later than the 13th to allow for any issue management.

4. Ask Clarifying Questions and Broadcast Status-

When projects or tasks are communicated, it is important to make sure you ask clarifying questions. Two reasons this important, you reduce rework by doing things as required an proves you understand the priority of your leader. It is not a flaw to ask further questions as the project progresses. This keeps you on track and also lets the stakeholders know you are doing the work while making progress.

I am not a huge fan of bragging or boasting, however I am a fan of useful updates. In the same notion, do not spam people with updates and do not reply all if not required. A great example of this was one of my prior direct reports. He would send out a weekly update or when critical to a project. First line would say, “For Situational Awareness Only.” This way readers knew it was only an update and no action needed. The update was weekly or as needed for the project. In the email was detail on critical statuses and all the team was working on to assure project was on task.

5. NO Procrastination-

It is human nature to have moments of procrastination. Whether it is lack of coffee, confidence, or motivation nothing positive is going to come from prolonging responsibilities needing to be done. To get your takes done, you have to be self-motivated each day. This requires you to establish consistent habits on a daily basis. Here are a few tips to higher accountability.

First, get in the habit of writing out lists. Yes, it is ok to keep this on One Note or applications for accountability. My suggestion is you have two primary lists. One list is the two to ten-minute lists. As I mentioned if it takes two minutes do it! Bust this list out each day.

Second, the second list is to have a running list of projects you are working on or need to work on. Leave yourself some space under each project for sub-tasks. Next to each project task, write out the next action step.

Third, become intentionally action-oriented by habit. Think of work and life as a giant recipe book, constantly thinking, “ok, what do I do next.” For instance, if you are planning a vacation. Planning the vacation will be a stresser until you take the first action step. On the list, plan vacation next to it should decide where to go on vacation. When you determine the location, the next action step is to determine dates and so on.

Finally, try to remove distractions from work or life, keeping you from getting your desired outcomes. These vices are eating our production time. It is why my iPhone does not have games, news, or other time eaters.

Conclusion-

My teams can attest the system of measuring accountability by Boomerang versus Stick provides a gratifying sense of playful competitiveness. I have led teams where my subordinates pushed each other to be first done or who was already done. Coincidentally, those teams were in their time and place considered best-in-class corporately.

The measurement process was also used as recognition, employee rating, and employee engagement tools. When the year end reviews came out, we discussed things like, “Yes person X had a good year, are they a boomerang?” It was a simple measurement of their accountability.

Lastly, it is gratifying and makes you nod your head when you see true Boomerang brilliance. For instance, when someone comes back to you and says, “Oh, by the way, I know it was due next week, but the task you asked me to do is complete, and here are outcomes.” Or even better is when you get in a cadence with true boomerangs. They come to you to say, “Since I know you would want this task done, I took it upon myself to have them pull the data, make a plan and execute on it. So we implemented XYZ, and here is the outcome and successful results.” Of course, you will have to function like a card-carrying accountable, boomerang leader yourself to get to that part. So get after it!

Let Pliable Dynamics Show You How to Become Wildly Accountable-

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