Not Your Responsibility

You know how when you go up to somebody (say at your job) and you ask that person to help you with something and they politely refuse you with a statement such as, “That’s not my responsibility”? Or somehow indicate to you that what you’re asking is not covered in his or her job description?

Well, this is not the kind of ‘Not Your Responsibility’ that I’ll be talking about today. The kind of responsibility I will be talking about here is the responsibilities you decide to take on over and beyond your own which are interfering with your ability to get your own things done. And the responsibilities which are necessary to spur personal growth and development.

Let me give you an example. Say you are on a work committee that is responsible for collecting dry goods to donate to a homeless shelter. You and three other people meet and decide who is going to do what. You decide to send out email reminders to everyone in the company and keep them updated about how they are meeting their donation goals. Another person decides where to set up collection bins and a collection schedule, someone else creates flyers and the last person arranges a baked good sale to be able to donate some cash as well to the homeless shelter.

Let’s say that you do your part and send out the initial emails, the person setting up the bins sets them up, the flyers go out and the baked sale is planned and publicized. Then you hear that the one of the bins is overflowing as your committee person has been too busy to collect the dry goods. So you rush over to collect the dry goods and stack them beside your desk and then go and check the other bins to make sure they’re not too full either.

Then the person arranging the baked goods sale goes away for company training without having quite completed the arrangements. So you call him or her, find out who was going to participate, starting contacting them and then create new flyers to publicize the new event (since you couldn’t go forward on the original date due to poor planning). And the next week you go and re-check the bins (because your co-worker has again been too mysteriously busy to get the job done), which results in you having several boxes of dry goods by your desk which you then decide to come in on the weekend to organize and label (even though your committee had all agreed to do this as a team at the end), which takes you 5 hours until you find you’ve had enough and go home.

 The next week, you check the bins again (because your co-worker isn’t even returning your phone calls now), call everyone on the baked goods bakers list to make sure they’re still baking, buy whatever is needed as some drop out (which involves a late night grocery store run – thank goodness for those 24-hour stores!), come in early to set up, brush aside the co-worker who is finally back from training (as she is too out of the loop to help, much less organize the sale), spend the entire day running the baked goods sale, collect the money and then decide on the best time and place to make the bank run to deposit the money. Later that week, you realize the co-worker who was supposed to run the baked goods sale failed to set up a bank account as well, so you take time over lunch to do just that, deposit the money and then check the bins yet again when you return to the office and then send out a final email (your original job) letting the office know where you are in regards to helping out the shelter. Finally, you fall exhausted into bed that night and make plans to check bins again the next week before you are able to go to sleep.

Obviously my scenario is a little exaggerated (but not too much if you’ve ever served on a work committee), but you get the point. At what point in that scenario would you realize that what you are doing is not your responsibility?  It goes without saying that the further you get from your original contribution and work role, the less actual work you will be doing (at what your company actually pays you to do) and the more deeply you become involved in doing something that someone else should have taken care of in the first place.

Many people I know find it easy to sacrifice their personal and work time for the greater good or in the interests of team spirit. And there are always a few souls out there who are ready and willing to take advantage of their kind natures. It’s okay if this happens every once in a while. That would make it a good life lesson to learn about boundaries and who you can rely upon in a pinch and then you’ll walk away from that a better, wiser person. But it is not okay when it begins to interfere with your own responsibilities and commitments.

If you find yourself routinely picking up after someone, taking on someone else’s responsibilities and sacrificing your own time to do it, something’s wrong. You have to clearly delineate in your mind what is your responsibility and what is someone else’s responsibility. If you find people constantly taking advantage of your kindness, flexibility or big-heartedness, it’s time for you to stop.

Having boundaries does not mean saying no to everybody in your life. It’s a balance between meeting your needs and helping someone else meet their needs. You cannot make someone else take on personal responsibility, but you can certainly choose not to take it own yourself.

Helping people is great. Helping people as they are learning to help themselves is an even more wonderful and joyous experience. Taking away someone else’s responsibility and taking it on as your own is misguided. Not only does it mean more stress for you, but it actually robs them of the experience to grow into a responsible, mature person themselves.

They may actually be fully capable of doing that job and even more, but if you do it for them, you take away their opportunity to learn. You are an enabler of the worst sort. Think about it: you didn’t become the competent professional you are because someone else did all your work, did you? You became a competent professional because you were allowed the experiences and the opportunities which forced you to stretch beyond your comfort zone and move beyond the previous competencies you had. You gained confidence, savvy and know-how as you had more and more of these experiences until you became the person you are today.

So who are you to deny this experience to anybody else?

Besides helping them grow, these experiences are also crucial for you as well. They are crucial to you because as a friend, mentor or co-worker, you have to be able to stand out of the way and allow people to grow at their own pace and in their own timing. Even if (especially if) they are not doing things the way you want them to. Though you are wise and strong, you cannot be the person who dictates how another person grows. And if they do things differently than you do – but still get the job done – then so be it. Or if they discover they didn’t handle it right and have to start all over, even better. Of course you are there to offer advice, but you are not there to do the job for them. Rather than being an enabler in a negative sense, instead be someone who enables others to grow on their own terms. Allow your friends, co-workers and even relatives to find their own way in navigating various experiences in life. Mentor them, assist them in some ways and encourage them, but don’t do the job for them.

And if you falter in your reserve, just remember – it’s not your responsibility!

Be Blessed.

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