The Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability

While one shouldn’t ignore the suffering that people inflict on others, it is too easy to get lost in a sense of victimization. Even a company like General Electric (GE) can get trapped in the victim cycle. In one instance, it sold a product that had thousands of failures. The problem was caused by a design flaw that should have been caught, as GE had tried a similar approach years before. Everyone took a wait and see approach instead of taking action, pointing fingers when things unraveled.

Individuals and organizations are often forced Below The Line. It can be challenging to identify “the line between victimization and accountability” (44). One individual sued fast food restaurants for his health problems (he had two heart attacks), claiming that he didn’t realize the food was unhealthy because of the way it was marketed. This is an example of naivete or ignorance, but even high achievers can fall into victimization thinking, though they never allow themselves to stay in this mindset for long. Those that operate Below The Line avoid taking responsibility.

Getting unstuck from the victim cycle is challenging. Often, one needs the perspective of an outsider. You can also try to recognize when you are in the victim cycle by looking at a variety of signs that include feeling helpless, blaming others for your circumstances, focusing on what has been done to you, feeling that you are being treated unfairly, and adopting a pessimistic worldview.

The victim cycle can be broken into six stages:

1. “Ignore/Deny.” Organizations who refuse to acknowledge that they are being outsmarted or that the world around them is changing fall into this trap. The American auto industry shows a clear example, as it lagged Japanese successes. Enron’s CEO said that he thought the company was doing great when it began to run into trouble. Chambers Development Company vastly inflated its profits and understated its expenses. Ignoring or denying a problem is a direct path to getting stuck Below The Line.
2. Claiming something isn’t one’s job. Even if you recognize that a problem exists, you can still stay in the victim cycle by digging your heels in with the belief that the problem is someone else’s responsibility. For a customer, it can be frustrating to encounter a business in which every employee thinks this way. By relying on this thinking, an employee hurts the health of the company and their overall well-being.
3. “Finger-Pointing.” Once a problem is identified, it is easy to fall into a cycle of blaming everyone else. This can quickly snowball into costly delays as people and organizations find excuses for their own failures and the excuses expand to include failures not related to the original problem. Finger-pointing can take on many forms. The furniture company Herman Miller, for example, included a disclaimer in its product informing purchasers that any damages to the product they purchased were the fault of the transportation company. Many companies get trapped in finger-pointing as various divisions within the company blame others for lackluster performance.
4. Confusion and awaiting instructions. A sense of confusion often leads to inaction. One can receive conflicting ideas about the source of a problem and therefore not have a clear sense of direction. It is easy to believe that you should be told what to do instead of identifying a clear course of action.
5. Covering one’s “tail.” You can persist in Below The Line thinking by trying to create elaborate narratives that demonstrate how you couldn’t possibly be at fault. This can be seen in thoroughly documented email chains and explanations created before a problem emerges or after things have unraveled.
6. Waiting and seeing. Below The Line thinking is evident when those who see a problem simply stand by to see if things get better. A personal care product company took this approach with the introduction of a new product line, only to be beaten to the punch by a competitor. A particularly amusing example reported in The Wall Street Journal focused on the buildup of bird droppings in the attic of a Town Hall. A local person organized a volunteer group to take care of the problem, only to be told that this approach was unfeasible.

Getting into the victim cycle can provide a false sense of comfort. Mike Eagle was a promising vice president at a manufacturing company who transferred to a subsidiary to initiate a restructure. After frustrated efforts, he asked for the frank input of a supervisor at the organization, who revealed that workers felt that Mike didn’t understand the organization and was trying to apply strategies from manufacturing.

A friend pointed out that Mike was finding fault with everyone else and expecting someone to tell him what to do. Mike came to recognize that he hadn’t brought his best to the new organization. As Mike accepted that he had gotten stuck in victim cycle, he also identified a path forward. Mike eventually received awards for achieving results in this organization and become a part of senior leadership at the company. The “Victim Cycle Self-Examination” and scoring worksheets can help readers better understand how likely they are to fall into the victim cycle (69-70). As with Dorothy’s journey, people must examine their own attitudes in their journey to accept responsibility.

On paper, Citigroup achieved a lot of success by 2002, but it earned its money by engaging in questionable business practices. The company’s CEO accepted responsibility for those mistakes and took some steps in the right direction, but only in time will the public learn if Citigroup has learned to be accountable or if they are trying to appease the public with empty rhetoric.

When accountability is defined, it often carries negative connotations, as in finding out who is accountable for a failure or misstep instead of focusing on who is responsible for success. This create climates of fear in which excuses are made and blame always lays somewhere else. For example, when hamburgers at Jack in the Box caused the death of two children, they blamed this on their meat supplier, who blamed the federal government, who blamed the taxpayer.

The authors offer their own definition of accountability as “a personal choice to rise above one’s circumstances and demonstrate the ownership necessary for achieving desired results—to See It, Own It, Solve It, and Do It” (78). Fear leads to past-facing attitudes. Opportunities are lost because of a failure to look forward and be proactive. Local governments, for example, use a backwards process to install lights at intersections. Instead of anticipating which intersections will be dangerous, they wait until a few accidents happen. Pop psychologists often encourage people to see their problems as the result of some past trauma. Even if someone has experienced truly traumatic events, they are missing out on opportunities when they fail take responsibility for today.

An entire organization should share accountability. An organization’s success is the result of the efforts of everyone in it. One of the authors’ clients brought them on to transform the culture when rolling out a new information technology (IT) system. In the past, they had never accomplished such a task in time and on budget. By promoting a culture of accountability, employees changed their thinking from focusing narrowly on their jobs to thinking about how they could contribute to the project’s success.

Joint accountability is diagrammed (84-85). In a typical organization, things fall through the cracks when individuals focus on their narrowly defined responsibilities. Companies often try to hire themselves out of this problem. Instead, they should focus on getting members of the organization to recognize their accountability beyond the literal description of their job. Jack Welch promoted “boundarylessness” at GE to promote success. In a core team at an organization, each individual is the focal point for certain responsibilities but also recognizes their responsibility for the success of the team.

Imagine two assembly lines at the same company. In the first, workers are good at identifying problems and figuring out who caused them and the supervisor steps in to guilt the worker responsible. The result is that other workers learn to hide their mistakes, leading to sluggish output. In the second, when a problem is identified, fellow workers help the worker sort out the problem. Such a climate creates an environment in which everyone works together to address problems without feeling the need to cover up mistakes, leading to high output. Assembly two practiced joint accountability.

In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1989), Stephen R. Covey distinguishes between dependent, independent, and interdependent people. Dependent people focus on what others do; independent people try to get what they want solely through their own efforts; and interdependent people combine the “best of both worlds” (88). At a work environment that promotes interdependence with joint accountability, an individual still takes responsibility for their work, but they also see errors as opportunities to learn and grow. The entire organization thrives as less energy is spent assigning blame or covering things up and more is spent in identifying problems and improving things.

In an organization in which these things don’t exist, problems lead to finger-pointing and cover-ups. Things would have gone very differently if this had been the attitude when Apollo 13 reported, “Houston, we have a problem” (89). Instead, everyone worked together to solve the problem.

Leading people to make a connection between their work and the organization’s success brings purpose to their work. One client focused his sales company on the thing that mattered most to them­—making sales—by setting up a bell that was rung when a sale was made. This approach reverberated throughout the company. People can ask themselves what they can do to focus an organization on ringing their bell. This means that when people think of accountability, they must clearly define the results they are after.

The author’s approach to accountability requires continuous coaching and paying attention to both individual and joint accountability. This does come with cost, but people also save time by empowering workers and identifying opportunities. Consider Dennis Antinori, a vice president at a medical producer. He overcame a setback when the rollout of a new product was pushed back by one year. Despite no new products, he and his team stayed Above The Line, developing creative ways to meet sales targets.

The authors see examples of people applying or failing to apply the Oz Principle in the media daily. Betsy DiRosa suffered significant side effects, along with thousands of others, after taking a medication. She received $1 million after a court case. She is truly a victim here, but she also continued to take the medication even after reports of side effects were reported widely. The authors agree that what she was awarded was probably insufficient, but DiRosa could have done more in her own interest. In contrast, the authors also read in The Boston Globe of two sixth-grade conflict managers. They are trained to go out and reduce conflict by helping students identify the source of the conflict and how it can be solved.

Guidant Cardiac Rhythm Management was in a precarious situation in the 1990s. The company struggled to confront the reality that it was constantly working to catch up with competitors. They worked to reorganize the company around accountability toward producing new products. Though they successfully dealt with this aspect of the problem, they encountered another. Rolling out a new product wasn’t enough to reverse their fortunes. They shifted their management and marketing strategies again toward accountability and striving to deliver a customer and patient-centered message. These changes have led the company to expand tremendously.

Everyone slips Below The Line from time to time, but once people experience the power of thinking Above The Line, they will want to operate there as much as possible. Many clues can help people remain accountable and Above The Line. These include valuing honesty and openness and taking responsibility for one’s circumstances.