Why Are Your Employees Irresponsible?
Spoiler: We Made Them That Way

I just came out of a track session. We were reviewing the work of top managers at a general meeting, and the owner said:
Colleagues, if you take responsibility away from employees, you make them irresponsible.
And then you wonder: why do they come running to me over every little thing?
Because you’ve emasculated them as professionals by meddling in every step.


Fresh off the press, I’m sharing this, along with a couple of comments:

Many understand “Delegate the result” as Throw the employee into the water — let them swim.
The idea is cool, but to reduce the number of drownings, let’s break it down using the example of a complex sales deal.

You tell the employee:
Task: close the deal with this client. Check for 1.5 million. Go ahead with a song, I expect payment by Friday.


Can the employee come and say: It didn’t work out?
YES.
Because the final decision to pay or not is made by the Client. We’re not hypnotists; we can’t get into their head and press the Buy button (alas🥸).

But there’s a huge difference between “It didn’t work out” from a Performer and from a Responsible employee.

❌ Performer:
Well, I called, he said it’s expensive/I’ll think about it. I’m waiting. And I moved him to CRM status “Waiting for decision.”

He delegated responsibility to the client. The client didn’t buy — the employee isn’t at fault. But that’s not the work of a salesperson (responsible), but of a consultant (performer).
p.s. by the way, these are the ones all those AI salespeople will soon replace.

✅ Responsible (Pro):
He understands that the decision is up to the client, but the process of influence is entirely on him.
He comes to you not with excuses, but with facts:
🔘I reached out to all decision-makers, not just the secretary
🔘I checked their budget and confirmed we fit
🔘I found out competitors’ prices, compared them with ours, and differentiated
🔘I made 3 touches after the last meeting, identified their concerns about timelines, and addressed them with guarantees

And if after ALL THIS the client didn’t buy — there are no questions for the employee. He did his maximum. We just sit down and analyze: Okay, where did we go wrong? Maybe the qualification wasn’t right at the entry to the funnel? Do we clearly understand the reason for the rejection? etc.

How should an employee ask for help?
Responsibility doesn’t mean “Do everything yourself.” It means coming not with the question “What should I do?” but with a hypothesis.

Vlad, I’m stuck. I see the situation like this: the client is hesitating. I have an idea to give them a test drive or split the payment. What do you think would work better? I think this option, and here’s why... What do you think would work better?”


This is an adult-to-adult conversation. He uses your experience to strengthen HIS plan.

In summary:
If you want to grow a strong team, give them the right to make mistakes. But demand thorough work.
You can’t punish for the client not buying.
You should punish for the employee doing nothing to make the client buy, and just waiting for a miracle.

Responsibility is understanding: The result depends on the quality and quantity of my actions. I am the cause of the result.