Head Of Nothing

I was talking to some clients recently about the challenges of providing genuine accountability and responsibility to staff. We all agreed, after some discussion, that it is very difficult to provide a clear and open framework in which our staff, colleagues and associates can work without constraining them with our own beliefs about how and what should be done.

We discussed, again, for some time, what form those constraints could take, in particular, in those with whom we expect innovative thinking within their day to day activity. Our conclusion was that genuine accountability and responsibility only really comes when the only constraints are self imposed and not imposed by others.

As an example if we are asked to perform a particular task, and told to follow a process which we have not developed (nor accepted) then, when the output fails to meet our expectation, our natural reaction is to say, something along the lines of, “well, what did you expect”. It’s not the task that has caused the poor outcome, its not the process that’s caused the poor outcome, necessarily, but, at least in part, the lack of accountability, the lack of responsibility, that arises from a lack of ownership, i.e. the constraints imposed on the task that cause the problem.

This set me thinking, is it possible to have a role, a job, to work for somebody, and yet to do so without constraints. I concluded that in general there has to be some constraints but I set about thinking about a role that was as constraint free as possible.

Read more about this challenge as it develops here…