The Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum continues to be a popular story because it is relatable. It tells the story of characters initially stuck on the yellow brick road and thinking of themselves as victims of circumstances. Eventually, they learn to take responsibility for their lives and no longer wait for wizards to solve their problems. They journey from helplessness to empowerment by becoming accountable.

The problems that organizations face can be traced to a failure of leaders to take responsibility for their mistakes. Leaders, like Lucent’s former CEO Rich McGuinn, become adept at delivering good news to outsiders while ignoring stakeholders within the company who try to bring uncomfortable truths to their attention. Lucent’s workers were eventually proven correct, as a competitor eclipsed the company. The global economic system has become dysfunctional by favoring “rhetoric and excuses over results and accountability” (21).

In some cases, leaders, like Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy, acknowledge problems, but do so too late. Great companies confront uncomfortable truths directly. Because companies typically do not take accountability, many have lost faith in the economy. When the memory chips that Intel made were becoming cheap to manufacture, their leaders dared to ask what a new team might do if they were fired, which allowed them to plot a new course.