5 Basic Responses: Lessons in Accountability (2024)

My daughter called me the other day, distraught about a mishap she had in one of her courses at Auburn University. While fabricating a part in her engineering lab, she had removed too much material and the part was now out of spec. She had been diligent, measuring repeatedly. How could this have happened? Upon further investigation, the caliper she had been using was apparently out of calibration. After quizzing her, the instructor concurred that was indeed the problem and admitted it sometimes happens. But he wasn't going to cut her any slack: she needed to start over. To my daughter, that didn't seem fair - and perhaps it wasn't fair. But in the real world, the world outside the insulation of academia, she would have had to fabricate a new part. And that was the accountability lesson she was learning here.

As my daughter and I were discussing her experience, I thought back to my time at the US Air Force Academy. I spent the first several weeks there trying to survive Basic Cadet Training...learning how to shine shoes, march in step, and eat at attention. On the first day of training, I also learned there were only five appropriate responses to any question: 1)Yes, Sir/Ma'am, 2) No, Sir/Ma'am, 3) No Excuse, Sir/Ma'am, 4) Sir/Ma'am, I do not know, and 5) Sir/Ma'am, I do not understand. At the time, the requirement to answer any question or respond to any command with only those five responses seemed like just another basic training haze. What if I needed to explain my answer? What if I needed to provide context so the person yelling at me would understand it wasn't my fault? I continued to hold that perception all through my freshman year.

When I became an upperclassman with the responsibility for training freshman cadets, the genius of those simple responses became clear. In those five basic responses, the military was instilling in every cadet a profound sense of accountability. You see, we weren't allowed to elaborate on failures caused by elements outside of our control; we couldn't blame anyone else. If we didn't know the answer, it was our responsibility to find the answer. We weren't allowed to offer qualifying or clarifying explanations to our answers; it was simply "yes" or "no". The message was clear - we were sponsible for mission outcomes and we better be prepared to be held accountable for those outcomes, regardless of the circ*mstances.

That sense of accountability is as important in business as it is in the military. We all need that sense of accountability when it comes to delivering projects, writing proposals to grow the business, mentoring others, developing leaders, bringing new talent into the company, and keeping each other safe, among others. One of my old bosses, Craig Martin, used to say, "If it's to be, it's up to me." I think he got that just right. So while I'm not suggesting we start limiting our answers to important questions with only the five basic responses, I think that embracing the simplicity of these responses to establish a foundation for personal accountability is something to which we can all aspire.

Post Script: I'm very proud that my daughter took responsibility for her situation, albeit somewhat begrudgingly. She worked hard to fabricate a new part from scratch and got her project back on track. It's a lesson I'm confident she will lean on several times in her career.