Same Book, Different Title: From Crucial Confrontations to Crucial Accountability
I recently noticed something interesting: Crucial Confrontations and Crucial Accountability are essentially the same book. The authors changed the title, but the message remained focused on resolving violated expectations, broken commitments, and bad behavior.
The new title makes sense.
The word confrontation has developed a bad reputation. People hear it and immediately picture yelling, aggression, finger-pointing, and someone flipping a table like a reality television reunion.
But confrontation doesn’t have to be aggressive. Sometimes it simply means addressing an uncomfortable issue directly instead of pretending it didn’t happen.
And apparently, I’ve been doing a lot of confronting lately.
I’ve questioned unanswered requests, challenged inconsistent explanations, followed up when people hoped I would forget, and refused to accept silence as a satisfactory response. I’m not looking for an argument. I’m looking for answers.
That isn’t aggression. That is accountability.
That’s why the revised title works better. Accountability describes the real purpose of these conversations: identifying what was promised, explaining what actually happened, and asking what will be done about the difference.
Of course, some people would still prefer the original title—especially when they’re the ones being held accountable. Calling it a “confrontation” makes it easier to portray the person asking questions as the problem.
That can become the easy way out:
“Why are you being so confrontational?”
Translation: “Why won’t you stop asking about the thing I haven’t answered?”
Changing the language doesn’t change my approach. I will continue to ask direct questions and follow up, and I expect people and organizations to stand behind their words and actions.
Call it confrontation if you want.
I call it accountability—and I’m not allowing the easy way out.
Day 2: My Eye Has Seen Better Days 👁️
Day 2 after having the silicone oil removed from my eye, and this is what we’re working with.
As you can see from the picture, my eye is still very red and irritated. It currently looks like I either had eye surgery or seriously underestimated my opponent in a bar fight.
For the record: eye surgery.
The weirdest part remains the vision. I’m still looking through what feels like a glass of cloudy liquid, complete with a visible line that shifts as gravity does its thing.
It’s like someone installed a tiny carpenter’s level inside my eyeball, except this one is considerably less useful at hanging pictures.
Meanwhile, I’m continuing my eye drops four times a day—antibiotic plus the steroid. I have checked several times, and despite the steroids, I have not turned green, ripped my shirt off, or become the Hulk.
Disappointing.
At night, the eye guard goes back on to protect everything while it heals. Then I head back to the retina surgeon next week to see how things are progressing.
For now?
Red eye. Cloudy vision. Eye drops. Eye guard.
And apparently a front-row seat to watching gravity work from inside my own eyeball.
Day 2 of recovery continues.
Another LinkedIn “Recruiter.” Another Scam Pattern.
Apparently, my LinkedIn profile has become a magnet for people who need to work on their scam scripts.
This morning, I received a connection request from someone presenting himself as Abdulrasheed (Tirimisiyu) Adisa, a “Senior Human Resources Recruiter at Confidential.” I accepted it.
Almost immediately, he messaged me about my “career transition” and asked what types of positions I was targeting.
I told him: Director-level Learning & Development roles.
Then he asked what career level I wanted—despite my having just told him Director—and my salary expectations.
I answered: Director, minimum $180K.
Then came the familiar request:
“Kindly share your most recent resume so I can conduct a proper evaluation and present you to the hiring team.”
🚩 And here we go again.
I already suspected this was a scam very early in the conversation because I looked at his profile.
His experience shows several supposedly concurrent positions:
Senior Human Resources Recruiter at “Confidential”
Resume Writer and Career Coach through Fiverr and Upwork
Career Coach at Upwork
Career Coach at Apex Career Partner
Headhunting through Fiverr
These positions overlap each other extensively.
Then there's an alleged Bachelor of Arts in Human Resources Management from Harvard Business School, which raised another rather large eyebrow.
So I asked a very simple question:
“Is this for a role or are you selling a service? Send the job description.”
Instead of answering the question directly, I suddenly received a list of five remote positions supposedly matching my background, along with an attached Word document.
And here's another interesting detail: the message said he would “verify current openness with each organization”after I selected the positions I wanted to pursue.
Wait.
You're recruiting me for jobs, but you haven't verified that the jobs are actually open?
🤔
I responded with one word:
“Scam.”
And wouldn't you know it?
Almost immediately, the connection disappeared. His name in my LinkedIn inbox became “LinkedIn Member.”
That was fast.
The lesson isn't that every recruiter who contacts you is a scammer. Plenty of legitimate recruiters reach out to candidates every day.
The lesson is to look before you leap.
Check the person's employment history. Look for overlapping jobs that don't make sense. Look at their education. Ask for the actual job description. Ask which company is hiring. Don't unthinkingly send your resume, personal information, or money simply because someone says they have the perfect opportunity.
And when somebody supposedly recruiting for a Director-level position can't even get your name right—his opening message said, “I hope you're doing well Alexandro”—perhaps that's another clue.
Alexandro, wherever you are, apparently we both have an exciting career opportunity.
😂
Follow along at NielFlamm.com/blog for more adventures from the increasingly bizarre world of online recruiting.
The Eye Patch Came Off. That’s When the Fun Began. 👁️
Today, after dialysis, I headed back to the retina surgeon for the follow-up from yesterday’s silicone oil removal.
And the eye patch came off.
That’s where the fun began.
First, my eye looks like it got beat up in a bar fight. It’s bruised, irritated, and yes—it hurts.
But strangely, that isn’t the worst part.
Looking through that eye right now is like looking through a glass filled with cloudy liquid that is slowly trying to level out under gravity.
There’s a line. There’s cloudy stuff. It moves.
Basically, someone installed a snow globe in my eyeball and forgot to put the snow in.
Apparently, this is now part of the healing process.
I’ve also graduated to eye drops four times a day. One is an antibiotic, and the other is a steroid.
So if you see me next week and I’m green, 8 feet tall and screaming “HULK SMASH!”, we’ll know the steroid drops worked a little too well.
For the next week, I’ll continue the drops, keep an eye—literally—on the healing, and wear my eye guard at night so I don’t accidentally mess with it while sleeping.
Then it’s back to the retina surgeon in a week to see how everything is progressing.
Until then, I have dialysis, eye drops, an eye guard, and my own personal cloudy aquarium attached to my face.
Recovery continues.
Day 75: What Could Nextdoor Have Accomplished in 75 Days?
Today is Day 75.
Instead of writing another post about unanswered emails, detailed data, panels, communication strategies, or who did—or didn't—respond, I started wondering:
What can actually happen in 75 days?
Quite a lot.
A company can launch a product.
A marketing team can build and execute a campaign.
A business can hire and onboard employees.
A research team can conduct a study, analyze the results, write a report, and publish the findings.
A CEO can appear on multiple podcasts.
Nextdoor can publish new Insights reports, announce initiatives, change how small businesses interact with the platform, promote advertisers, celebrate emergency managers, and launch a Good Neighbor recognition program.
While one simple request remains unresolved.
Let's Measure This Differently
Forget days for a moment.
75 days = 1,800 hours.
That's approximately 108,000 minutes.
My original request probably requires one of three responses:
1. Here's the detailed data.
2. The detailed data isn't available to you.
3. Here's who you need to contact to obtain it.
That's it.
At this point, I'm almost impressed.
We've taken something that potentially required a two-minute email and turned it into a 75-day communications case study.
As someone with more than 20 years in Learning & Development, I've taught and designed training around efficiency, customer experience, communication, process improvement, and identifying performance gaps.
If this were presented as a training scenario, I'd probably ask learners:
“What could the organization have done differently?”
I have a feeling that discussion would be lively.
The Opportunity Cost Is More Interesting
Here's the part organizations sometimes miss.
Every unnecessary customer interaction has a cost.
Someone reads the email.
Someone forwards it.
Someone discusses it.
Someone decides whether to respond.
Communications becomes involved.
Leadership gets copied.
More emails arrive.
More public posts appear.
And suddenly the cost of not resolving something becomes greater than the cost of resolving it.
That's the fascinating part of Day 75.
Nextdoor didn't just spend 75 days not providing the detailed data.
It turned a two-minute question into a 75-day story.
And I'm still writing it.
So Let's Try Something New
I'm giving Nextdoor a hypothetical challenge:
You have two minutes.
No committee.
No communications strategy meeting.
No executive approval process.
No corporate language.
Just answer:
Is the “detailed data” referenced in your blog available to me?
Yes?
Send it.
No?
Tell me.
Restricted to advertisers?
Tell me.
That's communication.
And then we can finally retire the counter.
Because I'd much rather write:
Day 75: NEXTDOOR SENT THE DATA
That's a post I'd genuinely enjoy publishing.
Until then...
1,800 hours and counting.
This is the condensed version. My complete thoughts and continuing Nextdoor study are at NielFlamm.com/blog.
And subscribe at NielFlamm.com because apparently we're finding out together how high this counter can go.