Is The Responsibility Process Different Across Cultures?

I’m frequently asked if The Responsibility Process^® is different across cultures. It’s an excellent question, because it allows for us to make a really important distinction about nature and nurture.

The Responsibility Process is not different across cultures. It’s not different across ethnicities, races, gender, age, level of education, authority status. It is not different at all.

Just like we’re all generally, born with two arms, two legs, one nose, one mouth, two ears, two eyes – we are also all born with The Responsibility Process as a cognitive pattern in our minds.

It works the same for all of us, and gets triggered every time something goes wrong.

So, no, The Responsibility Process itself is not different across cultures, because it’s nature. What is different across cultures is nurture.

Nurture, in this case referring to how we’re taught to cope, how we’re taught to Blame and how Blame is reinforced, how we’re taught to Justify and how Justify is reinforced. The same applies to Shame, Obligation, all of the stages.

Every time I’ve thought of an example, I thought that somebody from that culture could find it to be rude, or biased, or unkind for me to use that example.

Here’s a generic example from work culture

We have two companies, Company A and Company B. In Company A a mistake is made, and it’s a big problem – it affects all departments.

People are called to meet to solve the problem, and they meet, and meet, and meet, and meet directors, vice-presidents, managers.  They’re meeting all over the place, and for three weeks the conversation never gets above Denial, Lay blame, and Justify. This may sound familiar to you.

It’s “Not my department’s fault, we didn’t do that,” finger pointing, and it’s “The process, we followed it,” blah, blah, all of that. So, no results in three weeks from hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on executives meeting.

Company B has the same situation, big, bad mistake, big, bad problem, affects all departments.

The Responsibility Process also is triggered in people in Company B, except they come together, and they meet for two hours.

For the first half hour they bicker. Then they stop bickering, and they get into true problem ownership and problem-solving mode.

In another hour and a half they have an action plan, and they get to work producing real results to address the problem.

Now, here’s what you can do about this.

I want you to think about the difference between Company B and Company A. I want you to think about the nurturing.

By nurturing I don’t mean just positive nurturing. I also mean the negative nurturing, right, of nurturing the toxicity, of reinforcing the coping mechanisms.

Think about what was different. Make up stories in your head about what must be different between Company A and Company B.

This will serve you the next time that you get into one of these deep doo-doo problem solving modes in your company.

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