NO MORE BS: Responsibility

Dale Renlund made a powerful point:

“… Blaming others, even if justified, allows us to excuse our behavior.  By so doing, we shift responsibility for our actions to others.  When the responsibility is shifted, we diminish both the need and our ability to act.  We turn ourselves into hapless victims rather than agents capable of independent action.”

Consider this statement with me as we observe and review recent events in America and the world.

1. The Department of Veterans Affairs – Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG) reviewed the administration of spina bifida benefits for children born to Vietnam veterans, found internal communication and data sharing were the root cause of administering the benefits program incorrectly. The Department of Veterans Affairs – Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) blamed each other for administration failure.  Applying Renlund’s point, we find that blaming each other equally provided the excuse for neither bureaucratic administration to accept responsibility.  Blocking movement towards action in correcting the problem, and ultimately the victims will continue to be children born of Vietnam veterans who deserve better and cannot cut the red tape to reach help desperately needed.  Worse, the blaming has turned the VBA and VHA from independent administrations into victims who deserve pity, instead of a boot kicking for their customers’ abuse!
2. The VA-OIG, in another inspection, found COVID to be the root cause for shortages and outages of personal protective equipment (PPE). Except none of the 42 facilities surveyed ran out of anything.  Stocks dipped low, but outages of supply never occurred.  The blame for the low stock was also found on data and lack of reporting data correctly.  While people were praised for acting to “shift supplies, create new processes, and order supplies promptly,” the people could not be blamed for the low stock levels and were made into victims of COVID and data mismanagement.

Please allow me a brief public service announcement: in business, one finds Juran’s Rule.  Juran’s Rule states that when there is a problem, 80-90% of the time, the processes are blamed, not the people.  The processes, or the written (supposedly) directions to perform a task, are so convoluted in government that Juran’s Rule could slide into 98% of the problem and still not run out of process convolution before people can be blamed.  Yet, the leadership of the VBA, VHA, and every other government agency refuse to look at the processes and eliminate, change, correct or even take action to review the processes.

Thus, Renlund’s point steals potential from people, as people become hapless victims to processes and procedures, instead of the commander of their duties and roles as hired.  The shift of responsibility from people to processes is the danger found in Juran’s Rule, not the truth in Juran’s Rule.  Thus, action to correct is diminished because responsibility has been shifted from leaders to the processes they are already responsible for monitoring.  Hence, when I see the VA-OIG allowing data or business processes to be blamed for the failure of people to act, according to the roles they have been hired to fill, I doubt the ability to fix the right problem.

3. Using Renlund’s point, here is a typical VA-OIG inspection summary. See if you can spot the responsibility shifting, the inaction, and the problems.
   • • The Department of Veterans Affairs – Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG) examined whether the VHA had effective procedures for (1) purchasing, (2) inventorying, and (3) tracking biologic implants such as skin substitutes and corneal or dental implants. The VA-OIG found deficiencies in all three areas at four medical facilities it visited. The audit team determined that purchasing agents did not always record implant purchases correctly or use the appropriate funds. The purchasing agents did not register 2,931 of 10,305 purchased biologic implants in the proper system [emphasis mine]. Instead, agents documented the implants in various local spreadsheets, databases, and third-party systems. Purchasing agents improperly used logistics funds instead of prosthetic funds, making it difficult for VHA to account for biologic implant spending fully and effectively budget or use funds for other purposes. Due to inadequate guidance, the OIG found that the facilities visited had an inaccurate inventory of biologic implants, did not use a standardized system, and did not consistently review stock on hand. The staff could not locate 714 biologic implants in inventory at the four facilities visited, valued at almost $1.1 million [emphasis mine]. The audit team also found 288 additional unrecorded items, valued at nearly $433,000, in storage locations [emphasis mine]. Poor inventory management can jeopardize prompt care, as medical providers may need to delay or cancel procedures if implants are unavailable. The facilities visited failed to track at least 45 percent of implants reported as used from October 2017 through March 2019 [emphasis mine]. VHA did not designate responsibility for overseeing tracking, develop a national policy on how facilities should track biologic implants, or have a standard tracking system that meets accreditation requirements. Effective tracking is needed for facilities to notify veterans if the manufacturers recall their implants.
     • Are the problems of shifting responsibility and the magnitude of the problem more understandable? Feel free to use the comments to discuss this example.
4. In the final example, we find another common problem at the VHA, the refusal to alert patients promptly about test results, with the same worn out and tired excuses, time, and refusal to employ and document according to standards. People did not do their jobs, and it took “several concerned members of Congress” to initiate a VA-OIG investigation to certify there was a problem. Still, the solution by the VA-OIG remains tepid at best!  Leading to questions for Congress to allow these problems to thrive and advance the issues that VHA hospital leadership intentionally designs incompetence into their processes and procedures, then dares the patients seeking care to find a solution to force the administration to do their jobs.  Irony strikes again in the VA-OIG reports; the same issue was investigated and reported with the same “recommendations” almost every month throughout the last two-years.  Why aren’t the VHA local leaders being held accountable by their VISN leadership teams for failure to act to fix their problems proactively?

Too often, the pattern at the VA, is exemplified in every other government agency for the keen observer to witness; act in a manner unacceptable, hide behind broken processes intentionally designed to hide purposefully designed incompetence, and escape responsibility but retain their jobs into retirement.  Essentially, the leaders of government agencies have employed the pattern discussed by Renlund for personal gain at the expense of the frustrated taxpayer.

When responsibility has been dodged, the answer is not to allow retirement, but to demand correction, holding people accountable, and set performance standards that include penalties for failure.  Training will have to occur, but cannot happen until written directives, policies, and procedures appear, that form the standard for employees’ behavior not responsible for the designed incompetence created by leadership.

In a “Liberty First Culture,” the adults looking to demand change take the pattern offered by Renlund and recognize the behavioral issues that will need correcting.

“… Blaming others, even if justified, allows us to excuse our behavior.  By so doing, we shift responsibility for our actions to others.  When the responsibility is shifted, we diminish both the need and our ability to act.  We turn ourselves into hapless victims rather than agents capable of independent action.”

Americans [A(h)-ME-I-CAN] are not hapless victims; we stare responsibility in the eye, accepting the responsibility, and choose to act in a manner that shows we have learned the lessons and are prepared to improve.  The time to correct the government that represents us is Right Now!  We must act, recognize the designers of incompetence for the traitors they are, and remove them from employment in government, promptly!

© 2021 M. Dave Salisbury
All Rights Reserved
The images used herein were obtained in the public domain; this author holds no copyright to the images displayed.