Stories Connecting Dots with Markus Andrezak Ep. 14 - Christopher Avery: The Responsibility Process
This episode is quiet. Quiet and deep. I am happy that Christopher Avery took the time and explained the Responsibility Process to us.
I will let Christopher explain it in the podcast - the topic is complex, deep and sensitive. He's much better in this than I am. I think it is important to try to wrap your head around this model which might change your understanding of responsibility from a model of blame and shame to a model of freedom to choose and to be conscious.
Some quotes from the podcast"We've been taught that to be a responsible person, you have to give up your impractical ambitions and do something more practical"
"How are you?" is an awkward question for Europeans, we tend to answer. Here is Christopher's reply to the question:
"How are you?"
"I am free, powerful and at choice, thank you!"
"Conscious choices on repetitive behaviour do have effect.
Central ingredients to the Responsibility Process"Intention, Awareness and Confront!"
Which answers does the responsibility process bring for teams?"A team to really be called a team is when a group of people rise to the occasion of shared responsibility"
At ca. 1:01 Christopher comes up with a great summary of what responsibility means for teams.
"It's not so much that we divide accountabilities, it is more that we feel aligned and integrated as a unit towards something".
"For us to be successful, we have to actually get past accountability processes and get to the place of real time communication around shared ownership for something bigger than myself."
Work Life Integration"Work life balance is a metaphor of scarcity. I prefer work life integration, which means that A different programme
As an interesting observation, Christopher is offering a programme which is 100% clear to be free of recipes and all the work needs to be done by you on your own and applied to yourself.
On requesting change"The next time you get upset at people who won't change, think about the last time you changed yourself".
On commitment on outcome"The more I have practiced responsibility, the more I focused on the means and let the outcomes go. Because I can not control every outcome. But I can control whether I did my best. Whether I did my best thinking. … I can't control all the outcomes, but I can control what I do towards making an outcome happen."
Resources- Christopher Avery's website
- All kinds of resources on his website, including the poster mentioned in the podcast
- The leadership gift, Christopher Avery's leadership programme
- Christopher Avery's book on The Responsibility Process