Taichi Masters

Hhmm... I detect a trend. It seems that almost everywhere I work, the people with whom I work are such good tai chi masters. And there is almost virtually NO sense of ownership at all.

Definition of a Tai Chi Master : a person who is an expert at "delegating" his/her task(s) to others so that s/he is free of any responsibility of answering to anyone regarding the said task(s)

Like in my current job... I'm in the Project Mgt dept (PMO) where we're gatekeepers to the projects to ensure that projects are compliant to standard guidelines and also to ensure that project activities and tasks are completed on time, documents are signed off on time, etc. This project is a huge one which involves implementing a system that affects a large number of users. Naturally, we can't possibly contact each and every user to get their updates so we would ideally appoint a team lead to own certain tasks/activities/documents so that it's easier to follow up with them. But see, the problem here is that NO ONE wants to take ownership of these tasks/activities/documents even though the task/activity/document is relevent to them!

And in the previous co, my work revolved around events, something like in an event mgt co. (but it's not). I'd have an event to put on so I'd go see each dept who needs to be involved in making the event happen. So say I'd go see the events dept, who's in charge of getting the backdrop/set done and transporting all the required equipment to the event site, etc. And when I tell them that I've got this event on this date and I need their help to get A, B, and C done to set up at the location of the event, I'd get told that "That's not my job". And I'm like, huh??? If it's not your job, then what the hell are u here for???

The best interdept teamwork/cooperation I've experienced has been at MNC, where I had virtually no issues getting things done internally (on the client's part is another issue altogether), most probably coz the company was small and the scale of the projects weren't large or very complex. And we were like a family there. Unfortunately, I got bored with the work there so I decided to leave... sigh...

So yeah, back to the lack of ownership. Why are ppl so afraid of taking ownership, especially for tasks that are relevent to them?? Scared they cannot do the job, is it? Seriously, these ppl make it so difficult to get things done coz Person A will tell us to check with Person B, who'll tell us to check with Person C, who'll tell us that Person A should be the owner. Geez!!

o_O