Responsibility equals control and control equals responsibility.
Or as a formula it is R=C & C=R
Now this might seem very simplistic to some people. But the importance of this formula and how the average entrepreneur, applies it day to day can dramatically improve circumstances.
Podcast Transcript
This formula is like the ultimate governor, here’s why…
This simple formula – Responsibility equals control and control equals responsibility – is so true but only to the degree that you are prepared to accept responsibility for any situation.
So, by accepting responsibility means you can exert control over the situations you find yourself in.
I first heard this formula from Mr Dan Kennedy the legendary US copywriter who I had the pleasure of working with many moons ago on a USA based National Speakers Association tour and he used this example, to illustrate the point.
When he was a pro speaker on the tour – there was another speaker on the program (for the record this wasn’t me – but at times it could have been :)) who was not doing as well with sales at the back of the room as he should have been doing. And when Dan had a conversation with him, he had a litany of reasons, for why he wasn’t doing so well.
“The environment’s not good”, as they were in a great big sports arena and the audience was sitting on benches and,
“The sound is bad”.
“His time slot is bad.”
“The sales staff were doing a terrible job and they are erratic,” and so on.
In Dan Kennedys example Dan went on to explain that whilst the list was somewhat right it didn’t take Dan himself who was also on the tour that long to figure out all of the same things.
By the time Dan had done his third presentation, he could see it was a terrible environment. And, the staff did suck. And especially for Dan because by the end of the day, they were exhausted, and they just wanted out of there and they couldn’t care less if anybody purchased anything.
So, Dan had the same list, but the key difference was Dan began to exert control over element after element, after element on the list.
For example, with the sales staff at the back of the room, Dan was the only speaker who paid them bonuses. Dan would arrive at the venue two hours before he spoke and went around to the manager first of all, and put him on a bonus plan based on how much was sold, this was discussed and based on the size of the audience. And then he went around with the manager to every one of the product sales areas, and set them up on their own little bonus plan.
“So if we sell this much, everybody gets $5 bills. If we sell this much, everybody gets $10 bills. If we sell this much, everybody gets $20 bills. And when all the dust settles before you all leave, I’ll be back around, passing out the cash. Now, do you want to hear what you can do to sell more? Fine. Here’s the script. Here’s what you say when they come out, etc etc”…
And so Dan did something like this for every item One by one down the list, because he understood that ultimately he is responsible for trying to control the environment in which he worked.
Now I have found the same in my circles – just like if you ask a Real Estate sales person how is business, and they answer with how tough the banks are being with lending policies and nobody can get loans – so it is too difficult to sell.
Or if you ask an entertainer how are your bookings going in this strange COVID world and most of them will say – oh its terrible but what would you expect in this market nobody is having events.
I must admit though – just the other day I got back this answer which was “look I have had a few enquiries, but I priced myself too high and I didn’t get the gigs”.
As I am sure you can sense the answers of blaming banks or COVID or the market are not overly useful because you have no opportunity to exercise any control over them. But the answer like “I have had a few enquiries, but I priced myself too high and I didn’t get the gigs” means you at least have an opportunity now to go try and figure out what the hell it is that we can do differently, that will affect the result.
This is a real thought pattern. And you pick it up, you can see who has it or not – by their language. And when you say to somebody, “how did your database mail campaign go?
“You know, it didn’t do very well” verses “well, we screwed it up”.
The person who says we screwed it up, guess what? they are the true entrepreneurs the successful entrepreneurs – the winner.
How are things going?
“Oh, business this month. Isn’t very good, Now that is a loser talking because they are not taking any responsibility for it. Therefore they have no control over it. So they can’t do anything about it. The people that say, well, we haven’t done much business this month. Now they’re in the, fix it, improve it, figure it out mode. And so this formula R=C & C=R is and can be so powerfull.
People just don’t quite understand how important this is because this really does make a difference. Whether people take responsibility or not depends if they are going to be in control of something and make a difference or just let things happen to them – the choice does exist.
And one of the things that I have observed amongst successful people – is how often they are willing to accept the fact and make the statement that I screwed this up. As opposed to so many other people who go the victim route, you know, this happened and that happened.
Remember there’s no power in that. No power in the excuse mode, in the long lists, all the excuses, the blame others…
The only power is in a hundred percent responsibility. So again, burn this into your psyche – your daily life – R=C & C=R
Responsibility equals control and control equals responsibility.
Trust me life and business will just keep getting better.
