by Charles Plant | Apr 4, 2013 | Emotional Intelligence
A number of years ago I was talking with the president of a small company that was owned by a much larger entity. The president’s job was to produce healthy profits which would then be dividended up to the parent company. The parent company held him accountable for profits and based his bonus on those profits.
So far no problem in theory. The president though, was completely demotivated and while he was accountable for profits, he didn’t feel responsible for them. (Are you thinking perhaps that these two words are interchangeable? Well they’re not.)
The problem was that the finance team at the parent company took the liberty of charging the subsidiary company for all sorts of things over which the president had no control. They charged him arbitrary management fees, transaction fees, interest charges etc and the president had no input on what these fees were. (For those of you who are accountants we’re talking here about allocated costs. This is my inner accounting nerd coming out. The rest of you can fall asleep here.)
So the thing was that the president was accountable but had no control. As a result, he didn’t feel responsible for the numbers. He was made accountable but didn’t feel responsible so was demotivated.
If you don’t have control over your work you may be accountable for results without feeling responsible.
Accountability is about being liable, answerable.
Accountability is based on logic, responsibility is based on emotions.
You can be given accountability but you cannot be given responsibility, it can only be taken.
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 | 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.)
by Charles Plant | Mar 27, 2013 | Leadership Development
I’m really getting interested in this selfishness conundrum. The problem appears to be that companies do better with selfless leaders (better employee engagement) but end up promoting selfish ones to leadership jobs.
It goes even farther when you look at what employees actually prefer versus what they do. Countless studies show that employees prefer selfless leaders but will actually pick selfish ones to lead them.
“Individuals who act in their own self-interest are more likely to gain dominance and leadership recognition than those who exhibit altruistic characteristics, according to a recent study.”
According to the research, generosity is not seen as a virtue by employees but self interest is. Employees in competitive situations will choose leaders whose self interested behaviour makes them appear more dominant.
I guess that this is a great example of how we are our own worst enemies.
