This weekend I am attending a training sponsored by the Mankind Project, an international men's organization that I belong to.
One of the concepts we have worked with is that of responsibility / accountability, which are things that I have held confusion about, in particular how to define them in the context of Nonviolent Communication (NVC).
One of the things that, in the past, has snagged me, is the idea that responsibility is about me blaming and criticizing someone when things don't go the way I would like -- whether that someone is another person or myself!
In other words, you are "held accountable" by having me point out to you the wrongness of your actions. Ouch!
Instead, I would like to offer definitions of responsibility and accountability in the framework of NVC, as I understand it:
1. I am 100% responsible for my actions, feelings and thoughts. Not 95%, not 99%, but one hundred percent!;
2. You are 100% responsible for your actions, feelings and thoughts.
There are no 2 ways about it -- if we fail to be clear about these first 2 points, we are doomed to recreating unhealthy patterns of relating to each other.
3. By understanding points #1 and #2, this supports me in having compassion for you. In other words, by not taking "responsibility," it frees me up to be more "responsIVE" and empathetic -- and genuinely display compassion for whatever comes alive in you in response to what I did or said; and
4. In order to meet my own need for learning and growing, I become accountable for my actions by actively seeking feedback -- by having a sincere curiosity about how you received my words or actions. And of course, it's a lot easier to open myself to feedback when I have let myself, and you, "off the hook" by not implying anyone is to blame or is wrong for what occurred.
By these definitions, the ideas of responsibility and accountability are things I want to move closer to, rather than run away from based on the old definitions based on wrong, bad, inappropriate, shame or punishment.
How about for you?
