This is a brief follow-up to the post, The power of words, on this blog.
Recently I posted a question on Faceboook and Twitter about the origin of the phrase “hold teams accountable.” The phrase is used frequently in “agile” circles. The only answer anyone suggested was that it probably pre-dates the agile movement, as managers have been thinking in terms of holding people in one sort of grip or another for a long time.
But that single answer was not the only response to the question (uh-oh; another pair of words, there).