The Responsibility Poem

I've talked a lot about the importance of accountability in the past (see my posts, "The buck stops here!", "12 O'Clock High", "The Accountability-Authority Matrix", "Honor Code", and "You have to hold people accountable..." for a few of my favorites).  I also want to mention my post, "Who is Will Someone?", because "Will Someone" often gets asked to do a lot of different things on teams and in organizations.  Unfortunately, because "Will Someone" is not a real person, those things just don't get done.  "Will Someone" reminds me a lot of the four individuals, "Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody" and a poem by Charles Osgood known as "The Responsibility Poem".  There are two versions, but I like the shorter version the best, which you can read below (I've also found this version with the title, "What Went Wrong"):

This is the story of four working people:

Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.

There was an important job to be done,

But Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.

Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.

Somebody got angry because it was Everybody's job.

Everybody thought Somebody would do it.

But Nobody asked Anybody.

It ended up that the job wasn't done.

Everybody blamed Somebody;

When Nobody did what Anybody could have.

In other words, when everyone is responsible, nobody is responsible.  Just remember the tragic story of Kitty Genovese, a 28 year-old woman who was attacked, raped, and murdered on March 13, 1964 right outside her apartment building while at least 39 of her neighbors (see my post, "Who is my neighbor?" and the so-called "Bystander Effect") heard her scream yet didn't call for help or come to her aid - because "Everybody thought that Somebody would do it" instead.