We were leaving the hockey rink, my son tired and drained. He staggered towards the double glass doors, his hair still wet with sweat. My wife and I scrambled to gather all his things and place them in his very large equipment bag so as not to lose any single piece of vital protective gear he would need. I picked up the bag and headed to the doors, trying to quickly catch up with my son, who neared the exit.
The head coach stepped in front of my son and said, “Woah. Where do you think you’re going? You don’t have your equipment.” I rushed up to explain to him that we did in fact have his equipment in his bag and we were good, but thanks for looking out for us. “No,” he said, “he needs to carry his bag. Every player is responsible for his gear. He can’t leave this building without carrying his bag… himself.” I looked at my son and he looked back at me. I slowly put the bag down. It was not exactly heavy but not exactly light either, maybe 20 pounds or so. My son turned towards the bag, bent down to get a good grip, lifted the straps up onto his shoulder and slowly walked out the door.
A simple act, but one that spoke volumes to me and my wife. Our son needs to take care of his hockey equipment and take responsibility for them. Of course, everyone needs to take care of their personal belongings and carry their own weight. But if you extend this idea further, we need to take responsibility not only for the things we own, but our actions, behaviors, and ideas. This can be difficult sometimes, especially when the outcome is not desirable. But facing those consequences is precisely what separates people who live with integrity and those who do not. It is a choice that I believe sets one up for success or failure. It sets the stage for open and honest communication, and I think lays the foundation for mutual respect between involved parties.
As a father and physician, I strive to take responsibility in all facets of my life. If I let my son down because we are late to hockey practice, that is on me, and I need to take responsibility for my part of it. It is important not just to set a good example for my son, but also to work on improving our time management in the future. It sets a goal for what we need to accomplish and allows us to look at the steps we need to take to meet those goals. We need to prepare to leave early, communicate clearly what we are doing, plan on getting to practice, and how we intend to work together.
Similarly, when a patient’s procedure or surgery does not go well, as the treating physician, I need to inform them about what went wrong and why. I am blunt – I tell patients how it is with very little sugar-coating. I do this with empathy, of course, but in my opinion communication with patients needs to be efficient and direct. So I don’t give myself the luxury of dancing around why something went wrong or how. If it is my fault, I tell them so. If it is not, I tell them that as well. My goal is to eliminate any emotion, blame, or drama with the facts. I work on ways to ameliorate the situation and teach myself how to do better next time, but I tell the patient what problems we encountered so we can work together to move on from the poor outcome to something better.
Perhaps you know of a situation in your own life where you were not able to take responsibility for a poor outcome. Maybe you left things ambiguous with a coworker, family member, or friend after a failed venture. It may not always be a great idea to be blunt with your communication style, but I think it is often a very good idea to take responsibility for your mistakes or failures. It is truly difficult to move on from a bad outcome if you do not take responsibility for it. It is even harder to learn from it and improve if you do not. I would encourage you to reach out to someone involved with a past failure and see if you can take ownership of your part of it. It may just open better communication and a new chapter in your relationship with them and the projects you do together.
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