Responsibility

Responsibility REdefined

Christopher Avery, PhD is a man who understands responsibity. His life's work has been spent studying human behavior, specifically in the context of collaboration and teamwork.

According to Avery, people often confuse responsibility with accountability. He lays out an easy to understand model of human behavior, as it relates to responsibility, and REdefines what it means to behave responsibly.

The effect of people behaving responsibly is ownership. In other words people who behave responsibly, per Avery's definition, by effect tend to take ownership of the outcomes they pursue; rather than simply going through the motions of what they're told to do. Exhibiting ownership behavior is widely regarded as the number one differentiating characteristic of a great employee. And fortunately for all of us, responsibility (and ownership) can be learned. This is powerful.

Responsible behavior by individuals is the key to success with Agile development. Without it you're pretty much guaranteed to get mediocre results at best. If you're not familiar with Avery or his work, we highly recommend that you pick up a copy of his book - Teamwork Is An INDIVIDUAL Skill - and/or check out his website.

At Gemba we see (and receive) tremendous value in Christopher's ideas on responsibility. We leverage his teachings to get better results with our Agile Adoption programs. Students who take ownership of their own outcome learn faster, perform better and get more return from their process improvement investment. In fact, these very ideas on what it means to behave responsibly have become the cornerstone of our culture here at Gemba. To see what we mean, check out our Code of Conduct. You'll see that we practice what we preach. And we're a better company for it.

To learn more about Responsibility REdefined visit ChristopherAvery.com