Will The Responsibility Process Work in my Culture?

I get asked a lot, “Will The Responsibility Process^® work in my culture?” The answer that I always give is, “It’s already at work in your culture. How’s it working?”

Now, what do I mean by that? Well, first of all, I love that someone’s asking me this question because they’re intrigued, they’re inspired, they want to know how to improve, they want to know how to improve their workplace.

Thank you for wondering and for asking. They’re also asking because they realize, at some level, even if unconsciously, they realize what an uphill battle it might be to change a culture from a coping culture to a growth culture.

When I say it’s already at work in your culture, I’m really acknowledging what I think their fear is – which is that it might be difficult to change this culture.

When I say it’s already at work, I mean The Responsibility Process is always at work all the time in everybody, everytime something goes wrong.

So, if you’re in a culture focused on problems, are you’re in a culture focused on control, authority, focused on approval? Do you find yourself trying to be seen and heard, accepted and approved of in your organization? Or is it offered to you automatically?

Are you just automatically offered approval as a skilled worker and human being and trusted? Some organizations are good at that, many aren’t.

The more your organization is in the mode of controlling, and punishing of mistakes, the more problems you’re going to have.

In that environment, everything is a problem – which means The Responsibility Process is going to get triggered in everybody all the time. And there is going to be a bunch of toxicity, lots of Blame and Justify.

People are going to be made to feel shamed, and do things out of Obligation. If that’s your culture, I’m sorry, and I understand wanting to change it. So let’s talk about what you can do.

Here’s what you can do today.

The first thing is, don’t try and change a thing except yourself. You are so powerful, so free, so much at choice. You’re far more powerful than you usually give yourself credit for.

The first thing I want you to do is to come to understand that by studying and demonstrating Responsibility for yourself. Forget everybody else, right? I’m here for you. We’re here for you. We have a boatload of free resources for you to study Responsibility and start to practice. And of course, we have programs to help you do that.

Then look around your culture, and see if you can find one or two people to study Responsibility with you, and to demonstrate responsibility at work.

If you can, then I suggest to you that maybe you can change the culture of your organization bit by bit, by bit. If you can’t find anybody who will partner with you to demonstrate this, or if it just is too, too hard, then you may want to look at moving to a different culture.