The accountability thing.
Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 7:47AM I'm back on GM today. It won't leave me alone. Back on the whole, "Whitacre should work for free" thing. You know what the other problem with that is, right? Other than the fact that you might not always get the best talent if there's no money involved. Other than the fact that it's just ridiculous, in my opinion.
Accountability.
It's tough to hold someone accountable for outcomes when there is no financial tie. It's totally one-sided at that point. Have you ever done volunteer work? I have. (I'll save my bewilderment at the people who will yell at volunteers for a different entry.) The only thing that kept me "honest" was my conviction to remain so. I worked hard because I believed in what I was doing. That should be enough, but sometimes it isn't.
The stakes were pretty low, in economic terms. About as low as they could ever be. If the program didn't go well, or the turnout for soccer registration wasn't as big as we had hoped, nobody was going to be fired. We were frustrated, sure, but we accepted that some things are beyond our control. Nobody's livelihood directly depended on what we were doing, after all.
Can you imagine this mindset in the corporate environment? "Well, Q1 earnings really took it on the chin, but hey, I'm only a volunteer, so I guess it's just one of those things. We'll try to do better next quarter."
Am I oversimplifying? Of course I am! It's one of my favorite ways to tackle a complex issue.
This is one of those journal entries that has no tidy conclusion. I'm thinking about it now because it's the subject of my presentation at the Women's Finance Exchange in a couple of weeks. Accountability. I've been working on my talking points. It's quite the lightning rod, as issues go. I'm a little nervous. Okay, a lot nervous. But I'm passionate about it, so I plan to speak from my heart and just see how it goes.
Reader Comments (2)
Are you videotaping? Has that been sorted out? I'm still incredibly upset that I won't be there.
Not sure on the taping, but we have pushed the meeting a week, to accommodate all the Spring Breakers. Hm. I capitalized that. I will surely hate myself in the morning, but I'm keeping it. It's a made up title, anyway. "Spring Breakers."