#195: Who is accountable? Everybody = Nobody

Hello dear friends

In November, Mr. Siphiwe Mpye, editor of Business Day’s Wanted Magazine challenged me to write a piece that held both December’s festivities and where we were in the world’s history.

It went through a few iterations. For someone like me who mostly works alone, it was a great pleasure to have my thoughts challenged and refined in dialogue and debate. This is the result.

I was particularly happy with this formulation, “to honour the divine is to honour all that is. In that world, the divine is indivisible. Our every action counts. We are the demon-makers or the angel-callers. Us. We create heaven. Or hells.”

Actually, I also liked this, “The world may seem rigid. You can soften it. Give it love. Yes, love. Hearts melt, and so can the world”.

Anyway, please read it and let me know what you think.

Then for fun, a few weeks ago, I watched a dragon drift across the sky to kiss the rising sun and had to share it. Go to the third frame to see the dragon in all its glory.

I’m also feeling slightly less compromised about being on Instagram, now that the G20 announced both a 15% global tax on multinational corporations and are exploring a similar approach for the world’s 3,000-odd billionaires, who often pay lower tax rates than you and I.

(Both approaches are ones pursued by the Ministry for the Future, in Kim Stanley Robinson’s speculative fiction book of the same name. You can read about that here.)

/strategy

Failure to implement is a guaranteed strategy killer.  

As Peter Drucker wrote, “Knowledge is useless to executives unless it has been translated into deeds” (thank you Shaheem Ebrahim for this great quote).

And often great strategy conversations do not translate into action, because the accountable people are not clearly identified.  

The worst meetings are those that end with the enthusiastic questions “Who is responsible?” and the room choruses “We are”.

Sounds great, but nothing gets done.

For action to happen you need someone accountable.

Broadcaster Charles Osgood’s Responsibility Poem is a brilliant way to reinforce the principle. I suggest you share it at your next team meeting.

I discovered this condensed version in Verne Harnish’s Scaling Up (if you run a business of any size and want a pragmatic ‘how to’ that translates the best of business research, think Jim Collins and friends, into practical implementation, this is the book. Thank you Twizza CEO, Lisle Clark, for the recommendation).

It goes like this…

“This is a little story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody.

There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.

Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.

Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody’s job.

Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody couldn’t do it.

It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have.”

The full version of Osgood’s poem has this stanza:

“Everybody was complaining that Somebody dropped the ball.

Anybody then could see it was an awful crying shame,

And Everybody looked around for Somebody to blame”.

Sound familiar?

Make sure that every meeting, every project has someONE accountable.

Simple in principle, often forgotten.

//self

It is all too easy to lose sight of the power of time.

Bill Gates has said “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

Journalist Jacob Riis put it like this, “Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before”.

But it is this Poorly Drawn Lines cartoon that captures the principle best.

Have a look, you will learn and laugh. Be a pot plant and you will prevail.  

If you’re still not convinced, take inspiration from Michael Willemse, who at 71 is Rhodes University’s oldest undergraduate student (thank you Cindy Archillies for bringing this to my attention).   

/// soul

Psychologist Thomas Moore writes beautifully about the importance of time, curiosity and complexity in enriching one’s soul.

It is a theme that he weaves across multiple books.

In The Dark Nights of the Soul he reflects, “Contemporary writers often emphasize growth and advance. Someone should also speak for being still and not getting anywhere. The entire rhythm is crucial.”

And advises, “… give yourself what you need at the deepest level. Care rather than cure. Organize your life to support the process. You are incubating your soul, not living a heroic adventure. Arrange life accordingly. Tone it down. Get what comforts you can, but don’t move against the process. Concentrate, reflect, think, and talk about your situation seriously with trusted friends.”

See you next week.

All the best

Karl

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