Chude Jideonwo

Every problem you have is your responsibility regardless of who caused it.

Now, it sounds very simple, but to practice it is hard. Think of it, we are saying that if somebody came and did something that ruined your business or your company, it’s your responsibility.

But that’s why we struggle – because many of us want to stay in the place of blaming the [other] person. But this is the idea, you can apportion blame – [which is] useless but you can do that. But you can realise that “Well, now that it has happened it’s my responsibility to solve it.”

Once it has happened to you even if you didn’t want it – if [say] somebody infected you with COVID, [for instance] your husband is stubborn, he went to a party you told him not to go to and now he has brought the COVID home, it’s irresponsible of him, yes, but now the problem is your responsibility to solve.

Again, like I used to say, wasting your time might stop you from doing the work of just quickly going to the hospital to solve it.

In fact, I take it a bit more, I call it ‘Radical Responsibility.’ Everything that happens to me I take responsibility for.

If COVID affects my business operations I take responsibility for not building enough of a backup plan in times of crisis. If a team member reacts in a way I don’t want, I take it as my responsibility – I haven’t trained the person or properly matched jobs or skills with the person.

When you’re radically responsible, it’s very difficult for you to spend time blaming other people, it is very difficult for you to not solve problems because once you see the problem you don’t even have the time to say who caused it, you are just like, “How can we solve it?”

I don’t always apply this as much as I can, but the times when I apply it, it’s total freedom