No Responsibility, No Accountability

The old saw "No Guts, No Glory" has a new face:

No Responsibility, No Accountability.

No, of course: it's not so new. Peasants in every feudal/caste system in history and privates in every army of the world figured that out eons ago. It's corollary is "keep your head low" and "only those who dare to look up lose their heads."

And the Communist bureaucracies perfected the apparatchik mentality of hiding behind the rule - oh so many rules - to disguise incompetence and, equally often (if not more) fear.

No Responsibility, No Accountability.

What's new (and, again, maybe older than history) is that the sentiment of NR,NA is traveling from the top down these days.

The Cube doesn't care about top-dog corporate execs today - hell, NR,NA is what they pay million dollar lawyers to convince juries was their "true" situation while raking in billions in (oh how sadly) government-frozen "performance" bonuses and faux dividends.

But, if one believes in the intrinsic capability of the Middle tiers - and The Cube is tiered smack in Middle - then one has to be appalled by a recent experience --- which The Cube, eyes newly opened, is seeing played out again and again.

And again.

No Responsibility, No Accountability.

It plays out like this:

We are setting up a new operation. Not too simple, since it's both new and requires coordination among 3 - 4 departments. Somewhere in the setup, The Cube notices that part J doesn't link up with part K like it's supposed to. A little closer look discovers that quite a few little C-Ds, O-Ps and X-Y-Zs exist but they aren't connected. Logic says they should be linked, somehow, and when The Cube investigates - asks some simple questions like "Why this?" and "What is that for?" - the answers confirm logic. So The Cube informs the Management and other Do-ers of the Middle tier.

To discover that no one wants the Responsibility of connecting those links - and maintaining them.

The conversations become surreal: voices acknowledge the issue, while eyes look in different directions, embarrassed, as if we were discussing genital warts. And no one - not one of three, four, five Managers wants to touch the issue --- even though it will affect the operation we are putting together.

No one wants the Responsibility. No one wants to be held Accountable.

It would be easy to say that "this reflects upper management style and temperament," but The Cube has noticed that there is not such a direct correlation. Yeah, Responsibility-ducking Tops spawn like-minded Middle children --- but The Cube has seen great things come from the Middle and the Line in spite of such skewed Toppers --- and has seen, is seeing, NR,NA Mids spreading like cancers under the sightlines of some pretty solid, standup Tops.

No Responsibility, No Accountability.

The Cube is feeling rather ashamed these days. It's easy to see how the Top - both the competent captains and the ambitious greedy bastards who certainly want The Credit - look down on the Middle.