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Workweek Newsletter {beacon}

Hebba Youssef

Oct 5th, 2026

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HIII,

If you got the subject line and preview text reference, you’re a real one. <3

And if you didn’t, don’t worry I’m always here to drop some pop culture knowledge. Scroll down to the song of the week and hit PLAY.

You’ll be dancing in a few short seconds. While you’re at it, go watch Step Up. Heyyy don’t hate on a dance movie!

And if you have no idea WTF I’m talking about, ignore me and I’ll just go back to making sense and share some fun things to keep your on your radar:

🎃 HR Horror Stories (Vol. 4!!!!) is back. It’s my FAVE thing of the year!!! Click that link and submit your most frightening to absolutely outrageous HR stories. I’ll be reading them on the pod & featuring the most horrific stories in the newsletter. Someone asked should we take employee stories this year, what do you think?

🚨 Guess what. If you've spent more than 5 minutes with me, you know I love memes (maybe too much???), so I'm very excited to share that Safe Space now has its own Meme Maker. When you start a post, click the meme button, tell it the wildest thing that happened at work this week, and it'll give you a few options to tweak and share right away. HOW FUN!!

Now, onto today. A new quarter requires a new theme… so here we gooo.

Show me the receipts:

I spent Q3 in Build Mode, going through the stuff HR runs and deciding what to Improve, Rebuild, or Tear Down. Honestly, build mode is where I do my best work. 🤓 I guess it’s a good thing I've worked at 4 venture backed startups?? I live for making things come alive.

But there’s an additional layer I want to talk about when it comes to build mode… did the thing that was built ACTUALLY WORK?

✨ AKA accountability. ✨

So for the next 12 weeks, the theme is Receipts. And yes, receipts means accountability. Which means we have to deal with that word first.

What does accountability actually mean?

True or false: when a leader says "we need more accountability around here," they're about to take a hard look at their own decisions.

👀 FALSE (usually). 👀

I said what I said!

It feels like most times "accountability" is corporate code for someone is about to get blamed. Usually in the form of a PIP or vague corporate comms with lots of “we” being used.

To me, receipts aren't necessarily about who to blame, they’re about soooo much more. Like who gets away with things, who takes credit for things and who is left cleaning up all the messes.

(Not so) fun fact: Gallup asked leaders to rate themselves on seven core leadership skills, then asked managers to rate their leaders on the same ones. "Creating accountability" came in DEAD LAST. For both groups!! And 46% of leaders say they're great at it, but only 30% of managers say that about their leader. Woooooof.

So the people saying "we need more accountability" the loudest... are also the ones grading themselves higher. Yeah, okayyyy.

Enter corporate chaos… whatever do I mean???

Accountability problems never look like accountability problems:

Quick gut check: the last time something went sideways at work, did you think 'wow, this is an accountability problem'? My money is on probably not.

I bet your first thought was 'wtf happened?' and then 'who's fixing it?'" Me, she whispers to herself.

And that's the sneaky part!!! Accountability problems rarely announce themselves.

They show up disguised as something else… and then you start unraveling it (because sometimes we’re detectives), you get to the root, and ahhh. There's the accountability part.

Dig in, and the root is almost always one of three things:

(Spoiler alert: they all happen BEFORE anything goes wrong.)

1. Nobody defined what "good" looks like: You can't hold someone to a bar that was never CLEARLY set. The goal was "improve onboarding." Improve how? By when? Measured by what? Nobody decided. So when things don’t work, there's actually nothing to point to, and the mess lands on someone, sometimes unfairly.

2. Everyone owns it, so nobody does: The meeting ends. Everyone nods. "We'll take care of it." WHO IS WE? Is it me?? You?? Shared ownership sounds collaborative, but in practice, it means there's no name on the owner line. So when it works, everyone claims it! Cool WE did it. But, when it doesn't, it's a floating problem. And floating problems going unresolved create so much tension and frustration. (More on this next week because I have some THOUGHTS.)

3. Consequences only run one direction: When an exec misses, it's "a learning." Cute!! When an IC misses, there's a more serious convo happening. Sometimes involving a PIP. I think I’ve seen this film before, and you have too! And then it cuts the other way too: managers get held to outcomes they don't have the authority (cough power cough) to fix. Accountability without equal stakes, or without the power to actually do something about it, ISN’T accountability.

Notice something? None of those roots belong to JUST one person or one team.

➡️ Leaders set the gold standard (or don't).

➡️ Managers name and manage the work (or don't).

➡️ HR builds the systems to keep consequences fair (or doesn't).

➡️ Employees speak up when there are no clear owners (or don't).

The bottom line: accountability is actually EVERYONE’S job.

And HR isn’t there to play enforcer or clean things up! We get to ask for accountability too. Up, down, and sideways. ALL OVER THE ORG.

What's coming (and your homework)

So that's the next 12 weeks! Each week I'm picking one corner of our world and asking the same question: who's actually on the hook here?

🫶 EVERYONE IS GETTING A DOSE OF ACCOUNTABILITY. I’m feeling so generous this Q4. 🫶

Here's who's up:

The meeting where everyone agreed and nobody owns it. Been there, hated that.
The people at the top. What accountability looks like when you're usually the one doing the holding and can you put your CEO on a PIP? Maybe in the I Hate it Here world you can??
Managers stuck in the middle. Held responsible for stuff they don't control, we gotta talk about this dynamic because ITS NOT GOOD.
Employees. Yes, them too, minus the weird punitive vibes. There are healthy ways to hold them accountable.
AI. Who's on the hook when the tool gets it wrong? This one will be a big one to chew off and I know people will have feelings about what I say.
You. Your own 2026 receipt and it’s time to see what we need to take or toss. 🙂

And every one of these editions ends with an actual receipt: what worked, what it cost, what changed.

Which brings me to your homework (it's easy, I promise):

✍🏽 Hit reply and tell me one receipt you're proud of from this year. One thing you did that actually changed something. I want to brag about you in December. (Anonymously, if you want, I've got you.)

Q4 is a lot. It always is!!

But this year, let's not walk into January wondering what we did with the year. Let's walk in with the receipts?

Next week: everyone agreed, nobody owns it. (You know the drill).