One of my favourite authors of all time is the late Sir Terry Pratchett (those of you who know me are currently making that "oh really, never would have guessed" face that people make when someone states the blindingly obvious). His books are a perfect blend of humour, absurdity, high fantasy and really, really deep insights into human behaviour. Over the last few months I have been re-reading my collection and have just reached what is probably my favourite Pratchett book of all - The Hogfather. While reading, one passage jumped out at me because I realised that I see this every day. At work and at home - 

“The phrase ‘Someone ought to do something’ was not, by itself, a helpful one. People who used it never added the rider ‘and that someone is me’.”

Terry Pratchett - The Hogfather

How often do we see this? Someone identifies a problem, points at it and says "problem over here... someone fix it", maybe raises a ticket in the appropriate ticketing system... then walks away, patting themselves on the back for a job well done. How often is the person who does that us?

Identifying an issue is all very well, but until someone takes that next step - take action - the problem doesn't get fixed. Every organisation (and quire a few families) have list of problems that everyone knows about, but that no one has taken action to fix. Every team has a list of retro actions that sit there mouldering on a wiki page or in a ticketing system forever. Everyone in the organisation can give you a list of all the problems they know about and how long they have been problems for (usually a very long time). But until someone takes that next step, says the magic words "and that person is me", they continue to sit.

There are many reasons why we don't take ownership of issues. We may feel that we can't fix the issue ourselves - we may lack the skills or authority or knowledge to fix it. We may feel that the problem lies in an area that is outside our control. We may feel that the issue is being caused by another person or group so the fix should come from there. All these are perfectly valid reasons for not fixing the issue yourself. But they are not perfectly good reasons for doing nothing.

Doing something about an issue is not the same as fixing it yourself. You probably can't, or you would have done so. But there are things you can do. Raising a ticket in the right system is the obvious one but we all know that ticketing systems are where problem reports go to die. What else can you do?

Have you tried talking directly to the person you think is most able to fix it? Have you reached out to that other group and explained what the issue is? Have you followed up that ticket you raised? Have you researched the issue and come up with a proposed solution? Have you quantified the impact of the problem on you or your team so people know how serious it is? Have you raised it at town hall meetings, 1:1s with your boss or other forums? Or did you just raise a ticket and think "job done".

The moment a problem starts to be solved is the moment when someone chooses to take responsibility, says "and that someone is me" and starts to take action.

But what do you do when you do take responsibility, take ownership and start pushing a problem towards a solution but no one else does. What do you do when everyone else looks at you and your problem, shrugs and carries on? Or worse, sees that you are taking ownership and assumes that the problem is being taken care of by you, on your own, with no help from them required. Being the only person who takes responsibility can be very draining. You end up carrying all the problems around with you, constantly trying to find someone to help get them solved. Eventually, you get disillusioned, give up, get cynical, go back to raising a ticket and shrugging your shoulders. You tried. It didn't work.

There's no easy answer to this. Lack of responsibility is probably the biggest barrier to getting things done in most organisations. Most organisations recognise this and have something about responsibility in their values, but that's a bit like raising a ticket and walking away. Just having responsibility in your values doesn't mean anyone will actually do it. Like all problems, taking responsibility needs someone to take responsibility for it and follow it up until it is solved.

So what do you do if you are that one, lone person taking responsibility? How do you not burn out? The first thing to do is stop carrying all the problems around with you. You need to focus. You can’t be responsible for everything. Pick one problem. The most important one, or the one closest to a solution. Work on that one problem. 

Make sure others understand how important the problem is. How much it costs. How much time it wastes. How it impacts relationships. A big enough problem will cut through inaction simply because it is so important. It just has to be fixed. Go outside the org structure and talk directly to the people who can fix it. Don't rely on the organisation's usual communication and escalation paths. Propose solutions if you can. A proposal is nice and easy to pick up and implement with minimal work for them. It’s much more likely to get action than a request for them to do all the work of analysis.

But most important of all, if you feel that you are getting nowhere, be prepared to put the problem down gracefully. Don't forget it, keep it there in the background, but move on to something else. Don't give up completely. Pick up another problem and try there. But don't give up.

The more people see other taking responsibility, the more they will be likely to do it themselves. Role model it within your team, then your team can role model it for your group and your group for the whole organisation.

So, the next time you see a problem, don't just point at it, pick it up. Take responsibility and get it done.