Own it - taking responsibility
Happy New Year! Hope you had a great start to the year. We are already halfway through January and Chinese New Year is fast approaching.
December was a busy month for me with client deliveries. It was great to slow down over Christmas and New Year. I managed to fit in an impromptu holiday to Phuket, Thailand too. I got a good deal on last-minute flight tickets and Phuket and Khao Lak were the location from New Year’s Eve for 6 days. It was exactly what my body, mind, and soul needed.
And here we are in mid-January and the holiday already feels like a distant memory! However, I am buoyed by the interesting and relatively challenging client work that I am doing currently.
And this week I am called to write about ‘owning it’. This is a habit that my client wants their people to inculcate or activate as part of their journey to realise a future goal. There is a silo mentality creeping into the culture of the organisation and the senior leaders are keen to address it. By getting everyone to take responsibility and step up even if the action does not fall under their purview.
This is quite a challenge and a habit that is not easily changed. And this week I had an experience of my own that challenged my civic responsibility in ‘owning it’.
Mid-week this week, I was on my regular morning run around the lake near my house when I spotted a little wallet with cards in it. What caught my attention was the blue strip of the first card. It was an identity card (IC). In Malaysia, all citizens have an IC. I saw it on the running trail as I passed it. Before I got to it, I noticed other people passing it. It was impossible to miss.
As I passed it, I remember my brain alerting me to the IC. I continued running and the first thought that came to my mind was ‘a cleaning staff will do the necessary’.
But something stopped me in my tracks. For most of the second half of last year, I was working with my client to help their people ‘own it’ and I thought how can I possibly help them when I don’t ‘own it’ myself?
So, I turned back to pick up the wallet with the cards. I had a quick peak into the wallet and saw the identity of the person and noted that they lived relatively
nearby (ICs contain the address but no contact number). I am not sure if they accidentally dropped it or if it was ‘picked’ off the individual by a thief and disposed of. There was also a credit and debit card in the wallet.
Either way, I now felt responsible to do something about it. During my run, as I thought of all my options, I decided that it would be best to drop it off at our neighbourhood police station. In Malaysia, when we lose our IC we have to make a police report. I hoped that the police would proactively inform the owner and that the police system would highlight a loss report with the corresponding IC number (created by the owner of the wallet).
This part was easy. I knew what I had to do and did it. I swung by the police station after my shower.
The harder part was trying to discern why no one else picked it up. I can’t be sure how long the wallet was on the path but before I got to it, I noticed several people passing it. (I could tell too that something was on the path from a distance).
Picking it up meant responsibility – extra work or duty making it easier to ‘delegate’ it to ‘someone else’! I too thought the same, ‘someone else will hand it in’. Thankfully my subconscious alerted me.
And I am glad I did. How can I possibly help my client with their challenge if I don’t live it myself?
This week I ponder the question, where (else) do we need to ‘own it’ not because we have to, but because it is the right thing to do for the greater (common) good?
As always, you can reach me at yoga@yoganesadurai.com
ps I shall continue to write articles this year, however ‘regular’ now may mean monthly! 😉