Accountability

[Intro]
You can't blame it on the steward or the stewardess
You can't blame it on the co-pilot
You're the captain, you're responsible for this ship
You can't blame it on the steward or the stewardess
You can't blame it on the co-pilot
You're the captain, you're responsible for this ship
Accountability
Accountability

Accountability is important because that's how you're going to get leverage
That's how you're going to get credibility
It's also how you're going to get equity
You're gonna get a piece of the business
When you're negotiating with other people, ultimately if someone else is making a decision about how to compensate you, that decision will be based on how replaceable you are
If you have high accountability, that makes you less replaceable
And then they have to give you equity, which is a piece of the upside
But equity itself is a good example because equity is also a risk-based instrument
Equity means you get paid everything after all the people who need guaranteed money are paid back
So if you look at the hierarchy of capital in a company, the employees get paid first
They get paid the salary first
In legal proceedings, the salaries are sacrosanct
If you're a board member and the company spends too much money and has back salaries to pay, the government will go after you personally to pay back the salaries
So the employees get the most security, in exchange for that security, they don't have as much upside

[Chorus]
You can't blame it on the steward or the stewardess
You can't blame it on the co-pilot
You're the captain, you're responsible for this ship
You can't blame it on the steward or the stewardess
You can't blame it on the co-pilot
You're the captain, you're responsible for this ship
Accountability
(Accountability)
Accountability
(Accountability)

Next in line would be the debt holders who are maybe the bankers who lent money to the company for operations and they need to make their fixed coupon every month or every year, but they don't get much more upside beyond that
Now, they might be making five, 10, 15, 20, 25% a year, but that's where their upside is limited to
And then finally are the equity holders
And these people are actually gonna get most of the upside
So once the debt holders are paid off and the salaries are paid off, whatever remains goes to them
But if there isn't enough money to pay off the salaries and the debt holders, or if there's just enough to pay off the salary and the debt holders, which is what happens with most businesses most of the times, the equity holders get nothing
So the equity holders take on greater risk, but in exchange, they get nearly unlimited upside
And you can do the same with all of your work
So essentially, taking accountability for your actions is the same as taking an equity position in all of your work
You're essentially taking greater downside risk and greater upside risk
But realize that in modern society, the downside risk is not that large
People will forgive failures as long as you were honest and made a high integrity effort
And so people should be taking on a lot more accountability than they actually are

[Chorus]
You can't blame it on the steward or the stewardess
You can't blame it on the co-pilot
You're the captain, you're responsible for this ship
You can't blame it on the steward or the stewardess
You can't blame it on the co-pilot
You're the captain, you're responsible for this ship
Accountability
(Accountability)
Accountability
(Accountability)

An example of accountability is you're an airplane pilot
As a captain, you're taking on accountability for the entire plane
Let's say that something goes wrong with the aircraft, you can't later blame it on anyone else
You can't blame it on the steward or the stewardess, you can't blame it on the copilot
You're the captain, you're responsible for the ship
If you screw up, you crash the ship, and there are immediate consequences
In the old days, the captain was expected to go down with the ship
If the ship was sinking, literally the last person who got to get off was the captain
I think of accountability as reputational skin in the game
It's putting your personal reputation on the line as skin in the game
Accountability is a simple concept
The only part of accountability that may be a little counterintuitive is that we're currently socially brainwashed to not take on accountability
Is that we're currently socially brainwashed to not take on accountability
Not in a visible way
But I think there are ways to take on accountability where every member of a team can take on accountability for their portion
That is how you get a well-functioning team while still putting credits and losses in the correct columns
(Accountability)
(Accountability)
(Accountability)