by Charles Plant | Apr 3, 2013 | Leadership Development
I wrote an earlier post today on the topic of taking responsibility but to tell you the truth I wasn’t happy with it. Perhaps it was too early in the morning and I hadn’t woken up or perhaps it is because I’m only learning how to write in way that makes it enjoyable to read. Whatever. I’m now going to try to rectify that earlier bad job and try again so here goes, a special bonus post for Wednesday April 3rd.
Responsibility – A Fable
A long time ago in a land far far away, I was working with a super talented bunch of people who I mostly left alone because I can’t stand details. Amongst this super-talented group of people was one little redheaded girl who was always trying to make her job more meaningful and relevant to the organization. She wasn’t happy with the nature of her job and she kept asking me to give her something more to do.
To someone who doesn’t like detail, being nagged to find more work for someone else is just slightly annoying so I just kept telling her to figure it out for herself. Now as you might imagine, little redheaded girls don’t get their reputation for being ornery by letting something like that go. So she kept nagging and nagging.
Finally, in paroxysmal fit, I informed her in a very strong voice that Responsibility is Taken, it is not Given so don’t wait for me to give you more responsibility, go find some and take it yourself.
Well this little redheaded girl was no slouch so she paid attention to what I said and kept repeating to herself, Responsibility is Taken, not Given. Sure enough, she thought very hard and long and found a new area that was a complete blue ocean for the organization and slowly and surely took responsibility for owning that area.
Today, some four years later, this little redheaded girl has had two promotion, manages a team of about 10 people and earns way more than she did way back in that long ago time. All because she learned that Responsibility is Taken, not Given.
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So, tell me, which post did you like better, the earlier one or this one?
by Charles Plant | Apr 3, 2013 | Leadership Development
Are you sitting at work waiting for someone to give you responsibility? Have you identified a process that needs fixing, a product that needs improving, a job not being done? Are you waiting for someone to promote you or to give you responsibility for something? If so, you’re going to wait for a long time.
Responsibility is taken, it isn’t given. Even if someone tries to give it to you, you don’t have responsibility until you take it. If you want something done, if you want a new role, if you want a promotion you just have to go out there and take it because no one is going to give it to you.
If you really want to get ahead, start doing your boss’s job.
by Charles Plant | Apr 2, 2013 | Emotional Intelligence
When my son was small and was asked to apologize to his sister for some long forgotten transgression, he sighed deeply, scrunched up his face, turned red and blurted out “Sorry GaGa.” Now his sister’s name isn’t GaGa, that was just his way of mitigating the apology.
If you listen closely to many people’s apologies, they’ll say something like ” I’m sorry IF I offended you.” That’s the adult way of saying “Sorry GaGa.” The ‘If’ turns an outright apology to a conditional one and therein lies the problem. The apologizer (is this a word) is failing to accept full responsibility for his actions. (Please note that I have used the masculine form of his and hers because it is usually men who are wrong and who need to apologize.)
What we want is for an apologizer to acknowledge fault and fully accept responsibility. Accepting full responsibility defuses any situation immediately, takes the wind out of the sails of of the complainant.
The best thing to do is to live by the motto “If in doubt, apologize.” If you have the slightest concern that you may have something worthy of an apology then you probably do. You can even go one better and apologize ahead of time, knowing that you might need to build up apology credits to get out of the doghouse at some future date.
by Charles Plant | Apr 1, 2013 | Management Training
You may have celebrated April Fool’s Day your whole life but did you know that it was originally in March and officially proclaimed to be on April 1st by King Richard the 2nd of England?
Bear with me here. King Richard had a court clerk by the name of Chauntecleer, a student of Roman history. He was particularly fond of the Roman festival of Hilaria which was celebrated on the eighth day after the vernal equinox. Geoffrey Chaucer mentions this celebration in his Canterbury Tales as being on the 32nd day of March.
Back to Richard. While Richard was not insane, he did have some particularly nasty character flaws, one of which was playing tricks on the peasants. Towards the end of one abnormally long peasant revolt in the winter of 1392, he declared that all of the peasant’s demands would be met and feeling satisfied, they all went home.
Eight days later, invoking the ancient feast of Hilaria, Richard rescinded his edict and declared the peasants to be fools and that the 32nd day of March would forever be known as April Fool’s Day in their honour.
by Charles Plant | Mar 28, 2013 | Leadership Development
So my little test with a Twitter poll got a few responses and although not enough for scientific conclusions, did show that 63% of respondents did agree that their boss was either mostly or totally selfish. But this is actually a good thing.
Think of it this way. If you have a selfish boss then he or she will probably be promoted quickly since research shows that it is selfish people who are more likely to get promoted.
If you can feed into that selfishness by:
- Not asking for credit.
- Taking on the scut work.
- Pandering to his ego.
- Etc.
Then you’ll become invaluable and your boss will want you as part of her team in whatever job she gets next.
So look at it this way, if you have a selfish boss, you have a ticket to the top. (In case you haven’t noticed, this is what happens a lot in Survivor. Just remember how Natalie White beat Russell Hantz, the ultimate selfish boss in Survivor Samoa.)
