Thoughts on Why Responsibility is Like a 🔥🥔 Hot Potato 🔥🥔 at Work

I have been thinking a lot about responsibility, especially how it plays out — or not — at work lately. When I started working I had no idea about what responsibility actually means in practice. Of course I felt like I was a responsible person. But looking back, there were so many instances where I could have showed up more. Then again, I noticed I wasn’t alone in that.

Here’s a few thoughts on why I think we treat responsibility like a hot potato 🔥🥔.

1 | Talking the Talk 🗣

Theoretically, we all want to be the person who takes responsible for our actions, we want to be seen as the person who can deal with the consequences, or be the hero who stands strong for our opinions.

We don’t seem to shut up about it in a work context, that’s for sure. I feel like responsibility is a never-ending, omnipresent discussion in team meetings, 1:1s, all-hands — no matter what role, seniority level or company stage. In anything related to achievements, results or goals we’re always expecting more responsibility, from all players, and with fair reason. We need more skin in the game, an expression which has found itself as title to the book by Nassim Taleb.

We’re all big jazz hands about people we consider responsible too. It’s more than someone capable of handling a long list of responsibilities. It’s importance, competence, status and influence. We take pride in the idea of being an responsible person.

2 | But Not Walking the Walk 🚶‍♂️

Practically though, looking at especially us Gen Ys and Gen Zs, I feel like at times we treat responsibility a bit like …a hot potato. On one hand, we want it, but as soon as it’s in our hands we feel the burn and do anything we can to throw it off.

We say we don’t have the time, we’re being sick, stressed, don’t like it, not in the job description, above the pay grade, don’t have help, don’t know, the cat ate it. We overpromise and underdeliver and don’t want to stand for it. We shut up when we should have fought for what we think is right. We lie to cover up uncertainty, maybe blame it one someone else. Oh would you just look at that. This turns out we’re all awkward potato about responsibility too.

3 | Lack of Authenticity and Broken Connection

One of the reasons I think we struggle with responsibility is because of the lack of alignment with who we are and what we do. The lack of authenticity here causes a disconnection within ourselves. We (unconsciously) create energy moving away from, as opposed to toward, what we are doing. We become less curious and so over time, we disengage. That in turn doubles as a way to blame the circumstances. It’s easier to shake off consequences when we can say to ourselves “hell, I didn’t like it or them anyway”🙅.

The lack authenticity in what we do also affects how we treat relationships with people. When we think that being fully responsible means you truly understand how your actions and words affect others, the disengagement from lack of authenticity with ourselves also worsens the quality of our internal dialogue as well as external, and consequently leads to shallower relationships. And most importantly, I couldn’t agree more with Esther Perel’s notion that “the quality of our relationships determine the quality of our lives”.

That’s why this is actually quite a biggie this one🙇‍♂️. That internal alignment has to be part of the game in order for us to even want to be responsible.

4 | Our Precious Vulnerability

Another reason I feel we struggle with responsibility is that we have a hesitation to be vulnerable. We’re struggling to deal with our own vulnerability and consequently with other people’s vulnerability too.

And why do we have a vulnerability issue? Brené Brown is quite the expert, but I’d agree that a lot of this for us post-millennials comes from having been raised with a certain precious fragility. All that well intended love of “you’re so special, you matter and everyone cares about what you do and say” inflated some serious ego 👨‍🎤.

So much so that it gets in the way of us doing things. When we feel like every interaction counts and has value, it’s also easier to lose a sense of resilience, flexibility and playfulness. Whatever we are doing becomes heavy and limp with importance. We end up being so preoccupied with our own feelings of importance that we can’t stand upsetting others because then we have to deal with their upset, and that’s just too upsetting. Wiping my tears as I write.

What a silly way to erode the very essence that of makes us human, the sometimes being vulnerable, imperfect and uncomfortable parts. As said, if we are unable to be vulnerable with ourselves, we lose the ability to do so with others too.

5 | Some Misguided Belonging

It’s of course very admirable that, if I may slate my generation a little further, we feel we “live and breathe our work, that we are our work”. But it’s problematic when everything becomes an exercise of reinforcing not only our identity but also our sense of belonging in this world.

In a lot of tech companies you see this whole branding around teams being “join us, we’re like a family”. And it can be like that. I’ve been there myself, I’m not arguing you shouldn’t be close with your colleagues, be best friends. But best friends is still different from family 👨‍👩‍👧‍👧. What I’m arguing is that the notion of family is counterproductive if we want to grow more responsibility in teams.

And why? Because when we’re told we’re part of a family, undue focus gets put on the relational aspect of why we’re sitting together in a meeting room. You suddenly feel like you belong unconditionally, the very idea of family is the opposite of alienation, isn't it? It just puts you as an employer in a wierd predicament because work relationships are really not unconditional. You need to perform.

Once you’ve dug yourself in that hole as a company culture, I’ve seen it’s so much harder to draw the discussion to “we’re here for the purpose of delivering results and it’s on you to do so thanks”. The fear of being cast out of the group takes over you and paralyses your little ass. And then we all wonder why nobody wants to “be more responsible”. We are family is basically not a helpful way to cultivate a sense of responsibility.

6 | Shortsighted 👓 Perspective

Finally, a reason I think we fail to take on more responsibility is because we lose a sense of thinking long term about what we’re doing and why. We forget to keep the bigger picture in mind, the ultimate goal as the main motivator. We don’t chunk down the problem into small opportunities and wins for the greater good. Too often do we close our horizon on our own position, trying to cover our own ass if the project we were working on doesn’t turn out quite as expected…

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Alright, that’s enough for today. Thanks for reading, folks!