ABSTRACT

In a powerful 2015 TEDtalk on the issue of organizational productivity, Dr. Yves Morieux, an expert in corporate transformation, stresses that our society is preoccupied with accountability instead of cooperation. We are constantly trying to put accountability in “someone’s hands” as he puts it. Morieux uses a relay race as a great example and metaphor for how accountability can derail our work efforts. There is a clear line of accountability as one runner passes the baton on to the next runner-done at the right time and speed. In this approach to a partnership-passing the baton and responsibility-Morieux argues, “we will know who to blame. But we’ll never win the race. If you think about it, we pay more attention to knowing who to blame in case we fail, than to creating the conditions to succeed.” This method creates institutions and leaders that are “able to fail, but in a compliant way, with somebody clearly accountable when we fail” (Morieux, 2015).