American office English has a vocabulary for acting first and informing afterward.
own it — take full responsibility for a task or a mistake.
run with it — take an idea or a task and carry it forward without further instruction.
take point — volunteer to lead on an issue. In the military, the point man walks first.
keep me in the loop — what a manager says who wants to be informed, not asked.
FYI — “for your information.” A note sent to inform, not to request approval.
In 1949 the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, in McConnell v. Williams, compared a surgeon’s control in the operating room to that of “the captain of a ship over all on board.” Under the resulting doctrine, “a surgeon of record is liable for all actions conducted in the course of the operation.” The surgeon answered for every nurse and assistant in the room.
The doctrine was popular in the 1950s and later declined. Wisconsin’s supreme court declined to adopt it, and commentators call it “anachronistic.” The phrase is still in use.
In 1984 James R. “Bobby” Evans, a district engineer for the Texas highway department in Tyler, saw trash blow out of the back of a pickup truck. He challenged a local group to “adopt” a section of highway. The Tyler Civitan Club took a two-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 69. On March 9, 1985, the signs went up: “First Adopt-a-Highway in the Nation.”
Today nearly 90,000 groups take part, in 49 states and in other countries. Each adopted stretch carries a sign with the name of the group responsible for it.
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.”
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.”
Coast Guard doctrine lists a “Principle of On-Scene Initiative.” It says: “Personal initiative has always been crucial to the success of our Service.” And: “Thus, we push both authority and responsibility to the lowest possible level.” The person on scene “can be depended upon to assess the situation, seize the initiative” and act.
The doctrine gives a historical reason. The service began with ten cutters spread from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Savannah, Georgia. Later it ran 148 remote lifesaving stations. Close central control was not practical. After Hurricane Katrina, “Over 5,600 Coast Guard men and women deployed from around the country and rescued more than 33,500 people.”
In February 2006 a select committee of the House of Representatives published its report on the response to Hurricane Katrina. Its title was “A Failure of Initiative.” The preface said: “If 9/11 was a failure of imagination then Katrina was a failure of initiative.”
The report faulted Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff for not using a federal plan that would have sent help to the states “rather than waiting for them to request it.” It said he carried out his responsibilities “late, ineffectively or not at all.” NBC News reported that the Coast Guard “alone rescued nearly half of 75,000 people stranded in New Orleans.”
On September 11, 2001, boats began taking people off Lower Manhattan before any official call. Captain Greg Freitas “instinctively raced back to the pier, ready to start his boat up to help in any way he could.”
With communications down, Coast Guard Lieutenant Michael Day was on his own. “Rather than trying to assert conventional control, Day picked up his radio handset.” The call went out to all available boats: “Anyone wanting to help with the evacuation of Lower Manhattan report to Governors Island.” Jessica DuLong, author of a book on the boatlift, said: “It was orderly, in most cases, but it was not organized.”
Early reports put the number evacuated at 500,000 to one million. A closer figure is believed to be about 270,000.
The mission rules for Apollo 8, finalized in November 1968, named two people who could act on their own judgment. Rule 1-3: “The Flight Director may, after analysis of the flight, choose to take any necessary action required for the successful completion of the mission.” Rule 1-4: “The Command Pilot may initiate such inflight action as he deems essential for crew safety.”
Federal regulations later did the same for the Space Shuttle. The commander “shall have the absolute authority to take whatever action” is needed to keep order, protect the crew and safeguard the Shuttle.
Netflix’s culture statement describes how decisions are made: “we identify an informed captain who’s responsible for making a judgment call on the right way ahead.” It adds: “We avoid decision-making by committee, which tends to slow companies down and undermine accountability.”
The captain is expected to “seek out different opinions,” which the company calls “farming for dissent.” Afterward, “the informed captain should reflect on their choices — what worked and what didn’t.” Netflix says it takes pride in “how few, not how many, decisions senior leaders make.”