Quotes About Accountability

Flex organizations do more than enable their players to worm out of accountability through their might-be-state, might-be-private status; they supplant the state.

My desire is to stand up and brush myself off when I make mistakes and ask for forgiveness.

Even for the most minimal definitions of democracy—as a mechanism to ensure peaceful turnovers in power after a process of popular will-formation —it is crucial that citizens be well informed about politics; otherwise, governments can hardly be held accountable.

even if ballots are not stuffed by the ruling party on the day of the election, a vote can be undemocratic if the opposition can never make its case properly and journalists are prevented from reporting a government's failures.

Our biggest threat is not an asteroid about to crash into us, something we can do nothing about. Instead, all the major threats facing us today are problems entirely of our own making. And since we made the problems, we can also solve the problems.

The black leaders of this generation have much to answer for. They have perpetuated the myth that salvation comes only from whites. They have made careers out of shaking down a guilt-ridden society and dispensing the booty as patronage. In Thomas Sowell's words, these are men "whose own employment and visibility depend upon maintaining an adequate flow of injustices…."1026 Their very livelihoods depend on finding enough white wickedness to denounce.

Roy Innis, chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), denounces the many black leaders who still blame whites for all the woes that befall blacks: With few exceptions, these leaders have failed to recognize or do not accept that the major impediments to black progress have been removed…. The major remaining impediments to the progress of black people today are the evils indigenous to the black community. This is the new civil-rights battleground….1035

Jokainen on valmis mihin tahansa josta ei jää kiinni.

No time is no excuse

People will respect you more if you are open, honest, public, and responsive during a crisis. Don't hide behind spin or try to keep your bad news on the down low. You

The bottom line is that you shouldn't hire people you don't trust, or work for bosses who don't trust you. If you're not trusted to work remotely, why are you trusted to do anything at all? If you're held in such low regard, why are you able to talk to customers, write copy for an ad, design the next product, assess insurance claims, or do tax returns?

If you're not trusted to work remotely, why are you trusted to do anything at all? If you're held in such low regard, why are you able to talk to customers, write copy for an ad, design the next product, assess insurance claims, or do tax returns?

A great work ethic isn't about working whenever you're called upon. It's about doing what you say you're going to do, putting in a fair day's work, respecting the work, respecting the customer, respecting coworkers, not wasting time, not creating unnecessary work for other people, and not being a bottleneck. Work ethic is about being a fundamentally good person

if you can't let your employees work from home out of fear they'll slack off without your supervision, you're a babysitter, not a manager.

If you let them, humans have an amazing power to live up to your high expectations of reasonableness and responsibility.

To successfully work with other people, you have to trust each other. A big part of this is trusting people to get their work done wherever they are, without supervision."‡

The real world isn't a place, it's an excuse.

It's also a lot harder to bullshit your peers than your boss. In talking to a project manager without tech chops, programmers can make a thirty-minute job sound like a week-long polar expedition, but if their tall tale is out in the open for other programmers to see, it won't pass the smell test.

Nothing ever stops at the quarterly win. There are four quarters to a year. Forty to a decade. Every one of them has to produce, exceed, and beat EXPECTATIONS.

The message should come from the top. The highest-ranking person available should take control in a forceful way. Spread the message far and wide. Use whatever megaphone you have. Don't try to sweep it under the rug. "No comment" is not an option. Apologize the way a real person would and explain what happened in detail. Honestly be concerned about the fate of your customers—then prove it.

One of the worst ways is the non-apology apology, which sounds like an apology but doesn't really accept any blame. For example, "We're sorry if this upset you." Or "I'm sorry that you don't feel we lived up to your expectations." Whatever.

With a small team, you need people who are going to do work, not delegate work. Everyone's got to be producing. No one can be above the work.

Start by empowering everyone to make decisions on their own. If the company is full of people whom nobody trusts to make decisions without layers of managerial review, then the company is full of the wrong people.

We haven't done anything," Luke agreed, though he knew that was no guarantee of safety. Plenty of things happened to people who hadn't done anything—things that were never discussed again, or at least not by anyone with any sense.