Personal Responsibility #5

Jason-

I have been struggling with the idea of whether some or all or none of this comes to us naturally. Still not sure where I am at on that, but I would add a different perspective to what you have already outlined. I like the three components you have pointed to and I think that those are all things that can be intentionally baked into an organizational culture and especially into professional and leadership development programs.

In addition to the individual work, which is probably the most important, I think we also have to get out of the way of people. I think that we have to let people fail.

I believe we do a poor job of preparing, supporting and developing leaders in most organizations and there is far too much micro-managing...too much stepping in and interfering, both when things are going well and when they are going poorly. People are not often enough allowed to truly succeed and truly fail from their own efforts.

I think that it gets hard to have a sense of personal responsibility if you start to expect someone else is always going to get involved before long anyway. We need to remove space and buffers (within the organizational setting) between people and the consequences of their actions.

I hate to take the issue of "personal responsibility" and turn into another rant against the man, but I do think this is part of the issue. I have a two year old daughter at home and if I do not let her bust her chin or her knee up from time to time, she is probably just going to keep doing more daredevil stuff.

I think that people need to brush directly up against those consequences from time to time.

-joe