What Does It Take to Foster a “Culture of Responsibility” like the U.S. Army’s?

In many organizations, it is all too common to see coworkers throw one another under the bus. Some of us may have even engaged in some finger-pointing ourselves when a project went south, or when a big pitch landed with a thud. After all, nobody enjoys being perceived as a failure, even to herself. But what if things were different? What would happen in an organization where employees, rather than racing to absolve themselves, jostled to take the blame? On a recent trip to the U.S. Army’s National Training Center, Ned Smith, an associate professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School, was surprised to find just such an organization. In after-action reviews and debriefings, soldiers of every stripe, from privates to company commanders, stepped forward.