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Florida is flat. I mean really flat. The highest point in Florida is a small town called Mount Dora. I supposed it’s named after the peak there, which rises to 175 feet in elevation. Awesome. There are no such peaks on the Treasure Coast. Like lots of other walkers and joggers, when we want a little extra exercise my wife and I go to the only rise in elevation in our area, which is a bridge over the Indian River Lagoon. During our last walk there, as we approached the foot of the bridge, I saw a set of keys lying on the sidewalk. I wasn't sure what to do. Do I pick them up? Do I leave them there? It was an issue of some consequence. A stranger could take the keys, find the car in the parking lot and steal the car. At the very least, the owner may not find the keys and be inconvenienced. If I pick up the keys, what do I do with them? There’s no Lost and Found department at the bridge! If the owner backtracks looking for the keys, they would no longer be there where he dropped them. I picked up the keys. On the chain was a pink tag with the name “Doreen.” It was now my job to find Doreen, a task which would interrupt our bridge walk. My theory was that she was probably a walker, already on the bridge. The nearby parking lot was used mostly by walkers. Doreen’s car key said “Toyota.” If it matched one of the cars in the lot, I could be sure she’s on the bridge. I ran to the lot and tested all the Toyotas, but none matched. The only thing to do was to check the bridge anyway. I asked Kathleen to go up one side of the bridge while I go up the other. “Ask each woman you see if she’s Doreen.” I held up the keys to the first walker I saw. “Hi, are you Doreen?” “Yes, I am,” she said. Amazing luck. Kathleen had not even made it to the other side of the bridge yet, and I had already found the owner. Problem solved, and we continued our bridge walk. This incident reminded me that when my wife and I walk on the beach, we sometimes see trash. Pieces of metal and plastic. Bags. Toys. Maybe they wash up with the tide. Maybe people don't always clean up after themselves. The beach goes on forever, and it’s not our job to keep it clean. Parks and Recreation workers come through periodically to remove trash. But in a way, it is our beach. We walk there and we prefer it clean. So usually we pick things up as we go and put them in the next trash receptacle we find. Sometimes we pick up everything, sometimes only things that are directly in our path. We’re do-gooders with boundaries, I guess. It’s much easier to assume it's someone else's job, that someone else will do it. Sometimes what needs to be done is distasteful. A tough, thankless task. Or risky. Maybe with the challenges you already face, it's easy to make a case that you've already got enough responsibility. RESPONSIBILITY "Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he could only do a little." - Edmund Burke, British politician (1729-1797) "We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say 'It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.'" - Fred Rogers, American TV host (1928-2003) "I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; I will not refuse to do something I can do." - Helen Keller, American author (1880-1968) "Enlightenment means taking full responsibility for your life." - William Blake, British poet (1757-1827) "The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." - Albert Einstein, American physicist (1879-1955) “Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.” - George Bernard Shaw, British playwright (1856-1950) Taking responsibility means accepting the role to take action. It's something that needs to be done, so I’ll take care of it. For my coworkers. For the people I care about. For my community. For my country. For myself.
Article Source: http://www.articledestination.com
Dennis E. Coates is CEO of Performance Support Systems, author of MindFrames, a brain-based personality assessment system (www.initforlife.com) and co-founder of the Train-to-Ingrain alliance (www.train-to-ingrain.com, info@train-to-ingrain.com, 800-488-6463), which delivers a reinforcement-centered approach to learning and development that achieves permanent, measurable improvements in workplace behavior and positive impacts on business results.
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