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Watch Part 4 of our four-part series and learn how to Ditch The Drama During Annual Enrollment with these Reality-Based Leadership Tips. 

Watch Part 1 

Watch Part 2 

Watch Part 3 

Video Transcript

What will we say when this Annual Enrollment is over? Will we look back with pride at how we came together as a team to overcome every obstacle? Or will we look back with regret, thinking about what might have been?

In challenging times, great leaders know how to call their teams to greatness. It doesn’t happen by protecting everyone from every problem. As if you could. And it doesn’t happen by telling everyone how easy it’s going to be, because we all know it won’t be easy.

Calling your team to greatness means sharing your vision of success and asking each person to commit to getting there.

We’ve been talking about how personal accountability is the key to having a great Annual Enrollment. The final element of accountability is Continuous Learning.

At the end of every challenge, the results are either good or bad, success or failure. It’s easy to learn from the good experiences. Good results build morale, confidence and the pride of a job well done. Bad results, however; are sometimes more difficult to learn from.

Personally accountable people know that even in defeat, we can come away stronger. At the outset of the challenge we spent time thinking about how to become resilient. How to leverage our resources, rely on our teammates, ask for help when we need it, and most of all how to succeed in the face of adversity. When the challenge is over, it’s time to consider how well those strategies worked.

If we failed to achieve the goal, was it because we didn’t follow our strategy to be resilient? Or was it because the strategy itself was not sufficient to bring success. Now is the time to brainstorm; if we had it to do over again, how could we be more resilient? What could we do differently next time to get the win?

For individuals who have followed the four steps of personal accountability, this process of continuous learning is not painful; it’s hopeful. The pain would come from the embarrassment and stress of missing the goal. But for people who are committed and resilient, there’s no shame in owning the result, even when the result is negative. Accountable people know that there will be a next time and they start working toward that new challenge now.

Continuous learning means understanding the lesson of this challenge and resolving to apply that lesson next time.

Each of the four elements of personal accountability is important to success at Annual Enrollment. It starts with Commitment. It is a personal commitment to owning the results and not just a reasonable effort.

Once a commitment like that is made, we need to get resilient. We prepare for every contingency, we talk through our expectations as a team and we commit to supporting each other through thick and thin.

The third element is Ownership. That is, accepting ownership of our responsibilities. For good or for bad, once we have made our commitment, we must follow through and own the results. When the commitment is made clear at the start, there’s no need to play the blame game at the end; we can skip the drama and move directly to the final component; continuous learning. 

In this final element, we take the lessons that we learned during this challenge and apply them to the next challenge. We figure out how to do it better; how to be more resilient next time. How to improve as an individual and as a team.

That’s personal accountability. And that’s the key to success at AE. 

Now is the time! Take these ideas and use them to get your team geared up and ready for the challenge. Yes, there will be obstacles. Yes, it’s going to be difficult. But we don’t need to rely on heroics and we don’t need to get burned out by living in crisis mode. Pull together as a team today and you will be positioned for success throughout the Annual Enrollment season.

Thanks for watching the fourth part in our Ditch the Annual Enrollment Drama video series. You can watch all the videos below! 

Watch Part 1 

Watch Part 2 

Watch Part 3 

Want more context? Download the full Ditch the Annual Enrollment Drama Guide Below!

Get the Full Guide Here

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