Taking Responsibility
By Bronwyn Bowery-Ireland
CEO, ICA
Last year I was invited to lecture in the School of Management at Victoria University. It has been a wonderful learning experience, I have enjoyed being around people who are filled with enthusiasm and energy. Most of my students are in their early twenties and it is a real thrill to be able to see how these people, who will be our future, think and learn.
I must confess to initially thinking that they would be open and non judgemental, like new blossoms emerging from a flower, unstained or tainted.
However what I learnt is that new generations seem to be making all the same mistakes as those before them. Part of the assessment requirement for these students is to work on team projects. I was quite surprised to see that when the first little hiccup occurred, in their teams, they immediately went into ‘blame’ mode.
I found this to be quite extraordinary. Surely we are teaching our children to take responsibility for themselves rather than to blame others. Taking responsibility for ourselves is so much more empowering than blaming others. As coaches some of the first questions we often ask our clients and ourselves is ‘What can I take responsibility for?’ or ‘what am I not being responsible for in my daily life?’
I began to put my students through some behavior re-training. I asked them to always go to a place of taking responsibility first and I told them that we would practice this each week in the lectures. I did this by asking each week what each person was responsible for in relation to the information they were about to hear. One by one they would talk about making sure they could hear, being sure they could understand etc. Over time they came to understand how they could be responsible for their own learning.
Many students explained how this was a new concept for them and they all said how much easier it had become to be responsible. They now recognised what they needed from me and the lecture each week and ensured they received it.
Hopefully they will keep this learning alive in their life and turn to responsibility first instead of blame.