Responsibility. . .The Path to Personal and Organizational Sovereignty

Photo: Pelig Levi. As a educator of climbing, I was teaching responsibility. Being response able in challenging situations is a key to managing risk.

I think of the word and the notion of responsibility in a different way than most. I see it as freedom, which I know that to be true. Freedom to respond or response-able. This is a path to personal or organizational sovereignty. When we take responsibility, we choose to act in ways that are needed for the situation, rather than shirk what is being called for. This produces something rare and beautiful. Learning, growth, development and trust.

Yet we live in a culture where very few are willing to claim responsibility. View the C-span tapes of the Deep Water Horizon disaster and you will see exactly what I mean. BP, Trans-Ocean and other contractors all pointing fingers, and no one choosing freedom. One testimony went in for an hour of “No Comment.” How is this socially responsible? It is hard to watch because everyone plays along, but most know that the point is being missed. This behaviour much too common. KLM never claimed responsibility for the Tenerife disaster, even though their pilot made a choice that claimed the lives of 583 souls when he pulled throttle without runway clearance. Boeing initially blaming the pilots of the 373 max 8 crashes until it was clear that they had known of the aircraft problems. The response, post disaster is a fractal of the organizational culture that led to the calamity in the first place. In other words, the response detail highlights the cultural elements that led to the tragedy. Pay attention and you will see.

Taking responsibility reduces the long term cost in so many ways. I call it the acute pain of responsibility. It hurts short term, yet we forfeit the chronic pain that so often accompanies disaster. Bypassed are legal issues, amplified trauma and the unsettled nature of denial that carries forward for decades leaving the individual or organization vulnerable to repeat events. We carry these events, so we might as well make them useful to us in some way.

Responsibility leads to healing and learning which in turn mitigates risk in the future because by taking responsibility we grow and develop. We carry on with important lessons that help us live with what has happened because we honour it with the utility of behavioural change. We own everything, including ourselves, and in that we become Sovern.