Quotes About Accountability

problem wasn't as simple as a bad cop. Maybe it was the emotional state in which the cop had found himself.

The way to stop the captain from landing the plane in the wrong airport, Amos insisted, was to train others in the cockpit to question his judgment.

Really, it's brilliant what they have done within the bounds of the regulation. They are much less of a villain than I thought. The system has let down the investor.

An American killed by his spinach can justifiably blame the FDA, but an American killed by his steak is the responsibility of the Department of Agriculture. Cheese pizzas are the FDA's problem; pepperoni pizzas are supervised by the USDA.

When one fails to take action that could have avoided a disaster, one does not accept responsibility for the occurrence of the disaster.

The passage of time allowed for him and everyone else to see that the blame that had been assigned to an individual was more fairly bestowed on a situation.

The new acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Mick Mulvaney, said he wanted to end public access to records of consumer complaints against financial institutions. Two weeks after Hurricane Maria, statistics that detailed access to drinking water and electricity in Puerto Rico were deleted from the FEMA website.

I figured out that managers do all this shit because it is safe," said Alderson. "They don't get criticized for it.

We are the only reason your shitty state is standing.

What happens when the people in charge of managing these risks, along with the experts who understand them, have no interest in them?

It's Laissez-Faire Until You Get In Deep Shit

there is no such thing as individual achievement. A quarterback throws an interception and it might be his own fault; but it might also be the fault of the receiver who ran the wrong route, or the blocker who allowed him to be hit as he threw. Twenty-two players are involved in every football play. To value precisely the activity of any one of them, i

American bond traders may have sunk their firms by turning a blind eye to the risks in the subprime bond market, but they made a fortune for themselves in the bargain, and have for the most part never been called to account.

Who do you work for? That question haunted salesmen. Whenever a trader screwed a customer and the salesman became upset, the trader would ask the salesman, "Who do you work for anyway?" The message was clear: You work for Salomon Brothers. You work for me. I pay your bonus at the end of the year. So just shut up, you geek.

The public-health officer is like the garbage disposal," she said. "Whatever issue can't be filed into someone else's box or slot winds up in the health officer's.

We don't really celebrate the accomplishments of government employees. They exist in our society to take the blame.

My book asked: What happens when the people in charge of managing these risks, along with the experts who understand them, have no interest in them?

quite likely that the fate of entire societies may be sealed by a series of avoidable mistakes committed by their leaders.

People were soon saying how brave Messonnier had been to say that the virus could not be stopped. To Charity, her words sounded like the CDC letting itself off the hook for failing even to try.

you have become all the things you have done and thought, and now can't undo or unthink.

John Patterson, president of National Cash Register, was a fan of Napoleon. Patterson rode horseback with his executives every day at 5 a.m. He demanded that they maintain a little red book to record daily activities, thoughts, ideas, and so on. He ruthlessly fired many an employee who failed to maintain a notebook.

In a golf club everyone knows the player who does not replace his divot. One can guess how he leads the rest of his life.

People think a bomb is a mechanical object, a mechanical enemy. But you have to consider that somebody made it.

Government] regulation is an imperfect substitute for the accountability, and trust, built into a market in which food producers meet the gaze of eaters and vice versa.