No mention of who is taking full responsibility for the situation!
Edit: The CEO takes full "accountability" instead, further down the original announcement[0]
[0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230123124201/https://newsroom....
Edit: The CEO takes full "accountability" instead, further down the original announcement[0]
[0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230123124201/https://newsroom....
In other words, it means nothing.
Taking actual responsibility could include stepping down, canceling bonuses, reduced compensation for leadership. It could include steps to become better at forecasting rather than randomly guessing. It could include ironing the business model to become less dependent on the whims of advertisers. It could include re-education and internal placement of the excess employees or reducing their hours rather than firing them.
Why would you do that though when not only can you get away with doing nothing, the market rewards it.
I can see why Spotify is reluctant to dump the CEO. Theirs is a business model that's never been profitable anyway, so keeping the founder on couldn't make things any worse.
If a F1 driver admits his driving led to them loosing the race even though engineering did everything right, it's still the entire team that doesn't get the price. And if the entire team doesn't get enough funds in from their endeavor they might have to carry out layoffs. And you can be sure they'll lay off one of the 40 engineers before they lay off the driver.
That does not mean the driver can't mean it when he says he's sorry and taking responsibility. Trust me, he would rather be on the podium than loosing.
The mob mentality of "fire the driver first" will only leave you with 40 engineers starring at a car in a lot. You might say they need to change the driver, and that's certainly what's going to happen if management sees an opportunity for a better driver, but they can't just switch drivers between every race, imagine the spectators outrage at this team that's completely unpredictable and only ever keeps a driver for multiple races when he's first on the podium. And what driver would ever want to sign such a contract? Leave which ever team they are on for the chance at a higher pay, conditioned on getting 1 every time, otherwise the contract is void.
Not only that but the analogy even fails for F1 because there are reserve drivers and an infinite number of people who want to be F1 drivers, there'll never be an "empty seat"
Plenty of people wanting to do the job, but how many can actually do the job.
When you get a speeding ticket, do you blame the cop, the car, the state, anyone but yourself? Or do you say "yup, I am the one behind the wheel so I am responsible"
It doesn't mean you will never allow yourself to drive again or to only go 10mph from now on as self punishment. It just means you acknowledge your part like an adult instead of finding a way to appear blameless.
or: We had a prod outage, I was the code reviewer. "yup, I am the one who fucked up. It's my responsibility". Doesn't mean I am going to forego salary for the next 10 years to make the company whole for the outage.
I wonder if people confused by the 'responsibility' language themselves take responsibility for things in their lives, because they seem literally confused about what it means.
If you admit you're the one who was behind the wheel and thus responsible, then you DEAL WITH THE PENALTY, which includes paying a fine, points on your license, potential driver's ed, etc.
These CEOs aren't facing any actual consequences here. They're just parroting the empty words "I take responsibility".
> or: We had a prod outage, I was the code reviewer. "yup, I am the one who fucked up. It's my responsibility". Doesn't mean I am going to forego salary for the next 10 years to make the company whole for the outage.
Complete red herring. I'm struggling to believe that you're arguing in good faith here, actually. You really can't see any difference between thousands of people being laid off and making a bug in a code review??
Thank you for engaging. I intentionally picked something small like a production outage because - unlike hiring/firing 10k+ people - it's something more of us can relate to.
The topic at hand is - what does it mean to say "I am responsible?" I am using the relatable examples to explain it - it means as an adult I am saying "I am not blaming someone else, I am the one in charge here, and this happened on my watch / I made the decision."
This is in contrast to saying things like "the market is forcing our hand, I am powerless here" or "people under me made bad hiring decisions, I had no idea" - you are acknowledging that what happens on your watch, good or bad, is ultimately on you.
It's a separate concept from punishment. If you keep making bad decisions, your employees can chose to punish you by quitting, your boss (the board/shareholders) can punish you by asking you to resign, etc. Acknowledging responsibility over the decision doesn't imply you have to fire yourself.
The problem is the system. With an adequate social safety net, these layoffs matter much, much less.
Interestingly, responsibility is usually used as a get-out-of-jail-free phrase, while accountability literally means that you will take consequences. Maybe I'm just reading too much into the literal meaning of otherwise similar words.
From Merriam-Webster
1) subject to giving an account : answerable 2) capable of being explained : explainable
> accountable suggests imminence of retribution for unfulfilled trust or violated obligation.
I still don't see any implication of consequences.
In the current climate where every word and every sentence is picked apart, saying as little as possible might be the only strategy that minimizes outrage, ironically.
Or even better, back your words with actions. Like the Nintendo executive team did a decade ago.