Christopher Avery’s blog on Responsibility Redefined

We can legislate, mandate, monitor and create all kinds of means to put a tighter grip on management. When thinking this through we have to ask ourselves these questions:

Will strict monitoring of management functions stop actions leading to the seeking out of loop-holes and clauses which allow seemingly unethical but accepted management practice to continue or be stopped?

Will providing a governing body and heavily laden management practice still feed innovation, entrepreneurial passion and out of the box leadership genius?

Where does Personal Responsibility fit into this?

I believe leadership is definitely part and parcel to what brought us to this economic place in which we find ourselves. I do, however, feel that many industries and organizations exhibit culturally acceptable behaviours that do not support or accept a collaborative and openly transparent management style.

Can one organize or manage as a profession these kind of culturally accepted behaviours by creating a professional body around the governance of such management? I am not sure that’s the answer.

Many questions arise and many reviews and discussions and evaluations of past efforts similar to this would hold firm as great examples. Such as SOX compliance efforts. Did organizations actually change their habits in financial departments, or were they busy creating process and spending money to build a compliance model? Does the compliance model change the ethical habits, attitudes and behaviours of the staff or organization?

I don’t have an answer to any of these, other than we as a community of spenders and purchasers of products and services hold within our hand great power by choosing to select companies and organizations that are a fit for our own ethical and moral compass.

Knowing more about where we invest our money, how we manage our own personal intrests in feeding the economy and being vocal and loud about what we will or will not accept is also the responsibility of the general public.

Are we individually blind over-consumers and not paying attention to the collective, or do we care about our part in the manner and means in which the economy is functioning?

I agree, lets begin by taking personal responsibility for understanding the value of Trust, Ethics and Relationships within our own house, work and efforts. Each person is a leader in their own way – being responsible for that leadership is ours and ours alone!

That’s an interesting concept, to turn management into a profession much like law or accounting, and with (independent) ethics and review boards. I wonder if such an approach would lead to further abdication of responsibility to perform. Off the top of my head, I wonder – what would happen if performance was deemed subpar? Lose one’s “license” to practice management? Interesting concept.