I played golf recently with a teacher I highly respected (and a great golfer to boot). A Beautiful swing and a beautiful person. We got talking about the “positioning” of boys’ schools and how they have it all wrong. In a nutshell, many schools make promises like:
“Give us your boy in Year 7 and by Year 12, he’ll be a young man”.
I should note, that while this example comes from a boys’ school, it’s a credo that’s just as commonly shared by girls’ schools and co-ed schools.
This statement appears to place the entire responsibility for the end result on the school.
Now there’s a wonderful heartfelt, community intention here, but that’s not really how it works.
For starters, it takes two to tango
It’s not up to the school alone. It’s the school and you, the parents. Notice the shift of responsibility when parents leave it up to the school.
“Give us your boy in Year 7 and together by Year 12, he will be a young man”.
That’s a little closer.
But this is not the full picture either
There are just too many outside forces acting on kids (and yes, they are kids) these days that impact the promise of raising a well-rounded adult.
Social media, particularly fear of being missed out (FOMO), our economy, politics, social trends, the availability of drugs, alcohol, and peer pressure, to name a few.
So “society” must take some responsibility as well.
“Give us your boy in Year 7, and together with our management of external forces, by Year 12 he’ll be a young man”.
Getting Closer
But can you see the one variable missing here? And it’s the one factor I believe is causing so much angst in the world. It’s the fact that we are leaving your kid out of the equation. We keep shifting responsibility away from the “self” onto “others”.
Let’s have a fourth go, with the child taking the ultimate responsibility.
“Give us your boy in Year 7 and together with our management of external forces, we will guide him to take responsibility for being the best version of himself”.
Yeah, I know it’s overly wordy but you get the point. It puts the responsibility back on the individual.
What about You at Work?
Are you taking enough responsibility for your actions? Or are you finding yourself playing victim, blaming others, justifying, denying or withdrawing?
Here are some questions you can ask yourself (or get your team to ask themselves) that will put you back on track.
- How could I have contributed to this?
- What am I doing, or not doing, that makes this happen?
- What part did we play in this?
- What could we do better, faster, differently, or not at all to get a better result next time?
- What can we learn from this?
No doubt you have your own. I would love to hear them.
And on a personal note….
I bet you want to live a life of fulfilment. Of course, you do. One of the best ways of doing this is to have no regrets by taking full responsibility for all aspects of your life.
And it’s often not the things we do that we regret, it’s the things we don’t do. The things we don’t take responsibility for. Like for me not spending enough time with my parents as they got older, not sticking to learning piano and not travelling enough.
The bottom line is I didn’t take enough personal responsibility at the time to make it a priority.
What about you? What’s important to you that you keep putting off?
I love the song by Mike + The Mechanics – In the Living Years, which speaks about shifting responsibility onto others and not having a heart-to-heart with his father, and his regret in not doing so.
Every generation
Blames the one before
And all of their frustrations
Come beating on your door
I know that I’m a prisoner
To all my father held so dear
I know that I’m a hostage
To all his hopes and fears
I just wish I could have told him In the living years
But it doesn’t have to be this way. You can still look around and tell those around you, how much you love them. That one regret you don’t have to live with. One responsibility you’ll never regret taking.
So don’t yield to the fortunes
You sometimes see as fate
It may have a new perspective
On a different day
And if you don’t give up, and don’t give in
You just may be ok.
And so will our kids.
Until Next time…
Find the passion.
Develop the skills.
Make the numbers.
Make a difference.
Paul Mitchell
Paul Mitchell (@Paul_S_Mitchell) is a speaker, author, transformational leadership coach and founder of the human enterprise. Through leadership coaching, leadership development programmes, keynotes and facilitation, Paul works with organisations to build cultures where everybody leads.
