Accountability Archives - Page 3 of 8

The Individual Who Did Not

In 2017 criminals hacked the credit reporting company Equifax. On October 3 its former chief executive, Richard Smith, testified before a House subcommittee. He traced the breach to a security patch that was never applied. “The human error was that the individual who’s responsible for communicating in the organization to apply the patch, did not.”

In the same hearing he said: “The criminal hack happened on my watch, and as CEO, I am ultimately responsible, and I take full responsibility.” Representative Greg Walden said: “Talk about ham-handed responses, this is simply unacceptable.”

Higher Levels

In 2004 photographs of American soldiers abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq became public. In August an independent panel led by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger reported to Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. It found that “the abuses were not just the failure of some individuals to follow known standards.” It added: “There is both institutional and personal responsibility at higher levels.”

The panel opposed Rumsfeld’s resignation. Senator John Kerry, then running for president, said: “It’s not just the little person at the bottom who ought to pay the price of responsibility.”

Nunn-McCurdy

On September 8, 1982, President Ronald Reagan signed the Nunn-McCurdy provision into law. When the unit cost of a weapons program grows past set limits, the Defense Department must notify Congress.

A rise of 25 percent over the current baseline, or 50 percent over the original, is a critical breach. Then “the program must be terminated unless the Secretary of Defense certifies in writing” that it meets set conditions. A program that continues is restructured and needs a new milestone approval. Only a critical breach allows its original baseline to be revised.

No Consideration Needed

The Uniform Commercial Code governs the sale of goods in American state law. Section 2-209(1) reads: “An agreement modifying a contract within this Article needs no consideration to be binding.”

In contract law, consideration is what each side gives in exchange for the other’s promise. Under this section, the parties can change the deal without a new exchange.

The Webb Replan

In 2010 an independent panel chaired by John Casani reviewed the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA later told Congress that “the problems causing cost growth and schedule delays were associated with budgeting and program management.”

In August 2011 NASA announced a new plan. It assumed “a revised life-cycle-cost of about $8.7 billion” and a “launch readiness date of October 2018.”

No Excuse, Sir

A new cadet at West Point learns four basic responses: “Yes, sir.” “No, sir.” “No excuse, sir.” “Sir, I do not understand.” In 1981 the Christian Science Monitor listed nearly the same four, ending with “Sir, I did not understand.”

E + R = O

The first principle in Jack Canfield’s book The Success Principles is “Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life.” Canfield puts it in a formula: “E + R = O stands for Event + Response = Outcome.”

He draws the conclusion for his readers: “So what you have to do is change your response to get the outcome you want.”

Self-Reliance

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance” contains these lines: “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”

The GM Nod and the GM Salute

In 2014 General Motors recalled cars with a faulty ignition switch. Its engineers had first noted the problem in 2001. The Valukas report, released on June 5, 2014, described two habits inside the company. The “GM nod”: “everyone nods in agreement to a proposed plan of action but then leaves the room and does nothing.” The “GM salute”: “a crossing of the arms and pointing outward towards others, indicating responsibility belongs to someone else.”

CEO Mary Barra said: “No one raised the issues to the highest level of the company.” GM forced out 15 employees. At the time GM counted at least 13 deaths. Barra said: “We are better than this. But we own this problem.”

Extreme Ownership

Jocko Willink and Leif Babin served in Navy SEAL Task Unit Bruiser in Ramadi, Iraq. In their book Extreme Ownership (2015), Willink describes a friendly-fire incident during an operation there. He concluded: “there was only one person to blame for everything that had gone wrong on the operation: me.”

The book’s rule is: “The leader must own everything in his or her world.” Another of its principles is “No Bad Teams, Only Bad Leaders.”