The Responsibility Ripple Effect
There are always repercussions.
They are the butterfly wing beats that can thrust you into a positive trajectory or futile demise, and the truth of the matter is that frequently they depend on seemingly insignificant steps taken (or not taken) and the results that come to define those moments.
Communication, like in most instances of life, can be the key to keeping your eyes on the prize, your head above water, your team on point. Remove that essential, and a myriad of breakdowns will begin to occur...tiny hairlike fractures of inefficiency which have the collected power to bring down the roof if left unattended. This is the place I have always started when undertaking to troubleshoot the essence of a work environment that is not measuring up to the potential it could.
Take a self-assessment. Are you communicating information? Are you sharing resources? Are your teams part of a fluid work plan? Does everyone understand where they fall in this work plan and the responsibilities delegated to them? Does everyone understand the repercussions of one team not pulling their weight? Does everyone understand the impact of their own role within the company and the repercussions of not pulling their own weight?
Building a work plan with transparency in clearly defining where everyone fits within the working team and machine of the workplace, will go a lot further to reckoning the excusing of responsibility in preventative measures, than putting out a collection of fires built by neglect later.
Communication is key. Communication is also your safety, your annual medical check-up, and your delegation agreement. It's the key to smooth performance evaluations, leadership role selections, and overall company-wide health.
And this communication expectation goes both ways. Ignorance is not an excuse when breaking a law, nor should it be when shirking an assigned task. As you have civic responsibilities to understand the rules and laws of your city, state, and country, so you have responsibilities being part of a company or working environment.
If your leadership is not clear on communicating their needs and expectations, it is your responsibility to seek that information out. If you don’t understand something, it is your responsibility as a paid employee to seek that information out. If you are responsible for something you are unclear about the parameters of, it is your responsibility to seek that information out. Pushing off what is in your charge because of a lack of clarity isn’t a viable excuse. Why? You are being paid to do a job. Part of that job is understanding and growing your role and its potential.
How many times have I been faced with managers who have neglected reports? Or supplied partial stats required for a grant? Or launched employees onto warehouse floors with zero training? Or lost funding because the people paid to do a job decided that at some point, when they hit a question mark, it was totally appropriate to just stop and excuse themselves from the duty, communicating nothing to anyone.
I have worked on teams where whole divisions dropped off because of a project manager deciding one element of the task just wasn’t that important, probably.
I’ve seen nonprofits suffocating in quicksands of inadequate funding because program managers didn’t understand a reporting metric and just never got around to writing up the report in time to apply for the grant that funds their entire department.
It would be astonishing if it wasn’t so repetitive a disease that seems to spread so cavalierly among employees, company to company, from buildings to cupcakes, from the arts to high finance.
Don't be fooled by the delay between action and system response. There are always repercussions. Align yourself with the positive by owning your responsibilities and following them through to completion with a clear understanding--for the strength of a better you and future and team.