It is good to see you here. I always enjoy our exchanges.

My take is that the Responsibility Process does not care about your or my cultural conditioning (or regional, religious, school, parental, military, or other conditioning). Make the distinction that the Responsibility Process is in our DNA. Our conditioning affects how exhibit coping strategies of Lay Blame, Justify, Shame, Obligation, and Quit.

We absorb messages our entire lives about how to be responsible in their eyes. It’s a hard lesson to be learn that being true to oneself might lead someone else important to us to confront their expectations of us.

In my life, I don’t take this lightly. When that 1% happens, I look for ways to be true to myself while honoring them. I hope this helps. I definitely recommend The Leadership Gift as a way of working this more deeply.

What about familial duty? In my culture, as one of the oldest children in the family, there is a heap of expectation put on me to be the “responsible one” (I guess that’s Obligation). Familial duty is so important that it far outweighs any choice in the matter – it becomes the “right thing to do”. 99% of the time I’m relaxed enough to go with the flow and do it, but there is that 1% of the time when I resent it but I do it anyway. It’s not that I don’t have the courage to say “No”; it’s just that in this context it would be problematic (e.g. others losing face).

As always appreciate your comments!

You pose a good dilemma Murugesh. I’ll answer with more questions: Do you take on the extra work because you want to or because you have to or think you should?

What might be alternate resourceful responses to the situation? You could learn more about how to keep teammates committed. You could negotiate a redistribution of tasks. You could say, “sorry, no, not this time.”

I do teach that taking 100% responsibility for the success of the team is the pre-step to building any team any time. However that is not at all the same as taking on other’s work.

I know this is an incomplete response, but I’m going to invite you to ponder on it. Here’s another clue: Doing the “right thing” in someone elses’s opinion isn’t necessarily responsible.

And John, thanks for the additional detail. Very nice. I like your question (“Are you asking for help? OR, scaling back commitments”). That’s letting them notice that you noticed. Call it!

Saying you’re “over-responsible” can als be:

….saying you’re seeing failure in the future. = Justify

… saying you’re more responsible then Bob… Oh how I wish he’d help out more! = Blame

To get out of this state, it’s also useful to ask, “Are you asking for help? Or, scaling back commitments?”

If you were really being responsible, you wouldn’t be failing yourself & your customers by over-committing.

What if I had to do some things more than I’m supposed(not supposed) to do because other person is not willing to do or not performing well or has quit on this task. And if I refuse to do those things, then wouldn’t that be being “Irresponsible”?