I just returned from a really nice trip in the north of Israel with my family. And despite the fact that vacation is still on my mind, this post is not about Rest and Relaxation. It’s actually about Roles and Responsibilities, why they are important and what the repercussions are of not having them.
At SXSW in Austin, Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube unveiled a new fact checking system to identify if a claim in a video has been debunked. This comes after the years of YouTube not policing this content well, and lots of backlash. But what I found most… shocking was a report I read in Bloomberg about how she views her job at YouTube.
Fascinating to see her claim that this is not her job. Shes the friggin CEO of YouTube! If it’s not hers who’s is it?
Who’s Job is it Anyway?
Lets begin with a little story:
This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody,
Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and
Everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure Somebody would
do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody
got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody
thought Anybody could do it but Nobody realized that Everybody
wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when
Nobody did what Anybody could have done.”
Reminds me of the saying in Ethics of the Fathers (2:5):
וּבְמָקוֹם שֶׁאֵין אֲנָשִׁים, הִשְׁתַּדֵּל לִהְיוֹת אִישׁ
In a place where there is no man, strive to be that man”
We had an interesting situation of delegating authority at work the other day. Person A thought that Person B was most relevant to answer the question, and Person B thought C was most qualified, and as it happens, C said it should be the decision of person A.
#mindexplosion. Who should do it?!?!
I recognize that the story that happened to me at work is just as vague as the other popular one posted above, but ya know, privacy and all. Regardless, it’s worth breaking down what this actually means. Lets evaluate each word individually in R&R.
Role
This is an identifier. Where do you sit in the organization. Call it your job title. Simply put, what team are you part of? Are you on the finance team? Are you a lawyer? Sales? These are all different parts of the large machine that is the company.
And as you can imagine each part of the organization has very different responsibilities.
You can visualize this as a big square with different quadrants, a machine with spinning cogs and each cog is a role. Whatever you want. But this is YOUR place in the system.
Responsibility
This is the “what you do here” of your role.
If you are a lawyer, you have the responsibility to represent and protect the company from all legal proceedings. If you are in sales your responsibility is to drive revenue. It’s divided for many reasons. Many good reasons.
Guarding Your Responsibility
Can you imagine if you turned to the legal team and said “all right guys, time to role up your sleeves and start selling.” (see what I did there). Or even more humorous the other way around?
No, you can’t. Because those are unfair expectations. Because that’s not their role which means its also not their responsibility.
Someone called me Bituach Leumi (Israel’s national social security agency) the other day, because I was following a strict process. Also read as, following the rules. I like structure, so sue me (please don’t). But it’s not the rules I like perse, I just believe in structure and order, and without order you have chaos. Just like it’s someone’s responsibility is to create the rules, it’s my responsibility to enforce them. Not blindly. I enforce the rules that I believe in and I speak up against the rules that I don’t. But I also have a responsibility to keep order, and keep things functioning to effectively do my role.
Bedtime Even on Vacation
I view this in every aspect of my life. Work and family. My role at home is to be father to my kids and a partner to my wife. The responsibility we have is to raise them to be contributing members of society, provide everything they need, and raise them with strong morals and ethics. And I promise you, when I enforce rules that I have been put in place to help us do our job as parents and achieve those responsibilities, the kids don’t like it. I am certain they did not like being told there was a bedtime (a significantly later bedtime, but still a bedtime) on vacation. But I know its better for them.
Repercussions of not having proper R&R
Not having the proper R&R creates situations where
- Time is being cannibalized / abused / not used efficiently
- There is a lack of accountability (like Susan Wojcicki) on a project or task. “Why should I do this, it’s not what I signed up for”.
- You overstep into someone else’s territory and they feel wronged.
- And lots of other reasons (but I need to start wrapping this up!)
But having these clearly defined Roles and Responsibilities
- Provides clarity on an individuals expectations
- Alignment within the organization and other departments. Simply put, people work better and more efficiently when their responsibilities are clear
- Enables effective communications between the various teams within the company.
I am a big believer in R&R.
And in the case of Susan Wojcicki, is she right that it’s not really her job to deal with all the crap content, and conspiracy theories, and toxic cesspool of videos that people obviously post maliciously? The hell if I know. I would imagine it should be at the very least her responsibility to delegate that and ensure that its being solved. But what do I know.
All I know is that a proper R&R setup, whatever your responsibility assignment structure is. Maybe you use a RACI structure which we use at SimilarWeb (I will let James write about in his next post so he can send a backlink to my blog… FTW!) or maybe you use something else. Whatever it is, if you get your R&R set with your team, you will all have some well deserved time for the other kind of R&R.
Just don’t miss bedtime.
Blogging Challenge status: Still in it. 4 out of 12. 8 to go!