Responsibility Process

More recently, in the correspondence with one of my good friends, the topic of responsibility has reappeared. During the discussion, I decided to turn to the Christopher Avery's Responsibility Process - The process of taking responsibility from Christopher Avery (let me translate it this way).
Unfortunately, I did not find a Russian-language material on this topic (at least on the fly), so I decided that it would be useful to arrange this in the form of a post.

For the first time, I learned about the Responsibility Process as part of CSM and CSPO trainings from Sergey @dmitriev and this model seemed interesting, simple and effective.
Christopher Avery himself has devoted more than 20 years to the problem of responsibility and, presumably, he understands this. :)

So what is the essence of the Responsibility Process?

The fact is that before accepting responsibility for what has happened, a person passes through six stages of evading responsibility.
I will try to describe these stages using the example of a young couple’s dialogue, which went for a walk without an umbrella and at that moment the rain started to drip (I’ll not imagine the stages from bottom to top, as it is in the model itself, but from top to bottom in the list) .

1. Denial

The first thing a person tries to do when faced with a problem is to try to deny it or ignore its existence. Usually these are phrases like: “It cannot be!”, “How so? After all, yesterday everything was fine! ”Etc.
Here are the beginnings of our dialogue:
- Wow, rain!
- Oh, and we, in my opinion there is no umbrella.
- How so? You always take it with you ... give me a bag, I'll see for myself ...
')

2. Charge (Lay Blame)

The next step we are trying to find guilty in this situation. Usually these are phrases like: “This is all he!” (Accusation of another), “Again it happened!” (Accusation of circumstances), etc.
- How could you forget an umbrella? And, unfortunately, today!

3. Justify

Then we try to justify ourselves, citing ignorance, circumstances, etc. Usually, signs of this stage are phrases such as: “How could I have known?”, “It happened!”, Etc.
“Where did you think I could know that it would rain?”

4. Shame

Then, realizing that our fault is still there, we feel ashamed. Looks like responsibility? Nifiga! This is the same accusation (see stage 2), but by itself.
- Pancake! Could guess! Yesterday it was raining, and this morning it was dripping too. And now, here we stand and get wet, like two assholes.

5. Obligations

Understanding that simply shame is not constructive and will lead to nothing, we promise ourselves never to fall into such situations again. A responsibility? Also no! The problem is that we give ourselves promises, but do not accept it internally. We do not like the situation itself, and we do not want to be in it again, but that's all! Usually, this is indicated by phrases, such as: “I will never do that again!”, “No foot here!”, Etc.
- Everything, now before going out, I will always watch the forecast on the Internet.

6. Liberation (Quit)

In parallel, we are trying to alleviate the pain of shame and commitments. These are phrases like: “Well, it will pass!”, “Well, nothing, but I learned something,” etc. Interestingly, this is the output of the so-called "positive" person. This is also not a responsibility and it is better not to linger here.
- Well, okay, but walked in the rain! When will the opportunity be presented? :)
- Yeah ... besides, now you can not wash. :))

7. Responsibility

And only now we accept responsibility for what happened. And that means, we understand our ability to influence the situation, correct it now and prevent it in the future. Moreover, we are ready to act!
- Brr ... It's cold ...
- So, okay ... they were lost, they were so lost ... you give it under a shed, and I will drive for an umbrella, otherwise we will get so wet. And next time we will be more attentive.

That's all. I'm not sure that I was able to present the last stage well enough - apparently, I myself have problems at this level: D, but I hope, in general, the scheme turned out to be more or less understandable.

It is clear that the dialogue may not be two different people, but (and most likely) within the same person.
Plus, the passage of each of the stages takes in different situations and with different people at different times: from moments (we do not even notice how we take responsibility) to several tens or even hundreds of years (perennial conflicts, family wars, etc.).

In addition to the simple use of "for themselves", this model can be applied openly in entire communities (teams, organizations, etc.). When everyone knows about this model and can help a person who is “stuck” at one of the stages, this stage can be overcome: “Oooh ... Vasya is hanging on the prosecution stage.” But for this, I think, relations in the community should be sufficiently trusting and strong.

I hope this information will be useful.
If you have any questions, amendments, objections - please in the comments.

PS: Special thanks to Sergey @dmitriev . Here is his presentation on the topic .