Taking Responsibility
"I take full responsibility."
Donald Rumsfeld said this to Congress last week, during hearings. I never thought the phrase would be so empty of meaning. Can one utter the phrase, then do nothing? What else is being done? I do not necessarily mean that the only acceptable path is that Rumsfeld resign. It is this: When one takes full responsibility, some level of personal sacrifice is required; if none is proffered, then the acceptance is meaningless.
I cheer for small aviation businesses; it's so hard to get into the game, and so many participants do it for love, instead of for rational reasons. One man's aviation business dream just came to an end, when he took full responsibility:
Important Information for CustomersCustomer experience has uncovered a type of pump failure never experienced in years of field and laboratory testing of the dual rotor vacuum pump design, including the deliberate destruction of over 300 test pumps. These failures resulted in malfunctioning of both pumping chambers simultaneously. The failures are concentrated on the 300 horsepower Lycoming IO-540 engines. We believe that these engines generate a resonant frequency resulting in breakage of both graphite rotors. Multiple replacement pumps have failed on three different engines. At this point, we cant be certain about similar failures occurring on other engines. A failure rate of 3%, while seemingly small, is not acceptable for our product. Although the dual rotor pumps are performing well in the other 97% of installations, shipping of dual rotor pumps has been halted. The tens of thousands of dollars of orders on hand will not be filled. Aero Advantage refuses to continue marketing a product that might not perform satisfactorily for all its customers.
Aero Advantage was founded, in good faith, to improve safety of flight and to allow greater peace of mind for its customers by eliminating sudden loss of the vacuum source. While the precise changes that are needed to improve reliability may already be in place, they would likely require between 3 and 9 months to finalize and place into production. The company can not survive the financial burden of having no sales for that length of time and is closing its doors. Closure of the business was an extremely difficult decision for me, the inventor and company founder, since I have invested five years of work and most of my lifes savings in the business.
Several parties have expressed an interest in procuring the current technology and continuing the development of the necessary product improvements.
It is with much regret that I announce the above decision. I believe it is the correct one for all concerned.
Sincerely,
David A. Boldenow
Aero Advantage
My condolences, and respect, to Mr. David Boldenow. I'm sure he'll succeed at whatever he does next, and whoever deals with him will know he is of good character.
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Ross is right. In any
Ross is right. In any conceivable scenario Rumsfeld is both the person responsible for the mayhem, in that he is the person in ultimate charge of what's supposed to be going on, and the person who has TAKEN responsibility for the mayhem.
In the first case, responsibility means taking steps to punish the right people and fix things so this doesn't happen any more. It seems that is, in part, happening. No need for Rumsfeld to resign here.
However, by TAKING full responsibility for what's going on, Rumsfeld does open himself up to the possibility that he will have to resign. In any organization that went this far and this horribly off-course, that would be SOP.
But he shouldn't. I think having a new SecDef right now would actually be worse than leaving him on until November, where he will either be booted by Kerry or replaced by Bush. Even so, it'll be outrageous if Bush leaves him in place after November.
Ross:
Ross:
In general terms, I don't violently disagree with you. Once we get to the specifics, I have to differ a bit, however.
First, like Johno said. It would be highly risky, in my humble, to change leadership right now. Where I'd differ with Johno, as well, is in the presumption that ritualized self-slaughter would somehow fix the failings in command and execution on the ground in Iraq. I'm not sure that, even then, Bush should boot him, even if he did "take responsibility". Of course he's responsible, as the head of the organization. That doesn't make him personally culpable in the atrocities themselves.
The analogy with Aero Advantage has attractive points, but is not really applicable, I don't think.
Mr. Boldenow is in a position where he cannot afford to try to make things right. Rumsfeld's not within bombing distance of such a point, vis-a-vis the DoD, Iraq, or the WoT.
The fact that Boldenow lays it out in front of God and everybody makes him a stand-up guy, but there are those who think Rumsfeld is a stand-up guy for taking the political tongue-lashing meted out by Congress last week. And, as an aside, I'd bet there are at least a few customers of Aero Advantage who are downright pissed that Boldenow isn't in a position of enough strength to tough it out.