The Real Question Behind the Question

The question of whether responsibility lies with the person providing or requesting information serves a hidden purpose.

It helps us shift responsibility away from ourselves.

You probably know typical examples like these:

• “Someone should have told me.”
• “They should have asked for it.”
• “How was I supposed to know?”

All of these statements have one thing in common:

They change nothing.

They do not solve the problem.

They do not bring you any closer to the desired outcome.

They simply shift responsibility.

And that is exactly why this question is so appealing.

Because it provides emotional relief.

Why This Discussion Is So Dangerous

The problem is not that the question itself is wrong.

The problem is what it does to your focus.

As soon as you start thinking about who was responsible for providing or obtaining the information, your attention shifts:

• away from the outcome
• toward drawing boundaries
• toward justifying your own actions

You are no longer asking, “How do we solve this?”

You are asking, “Whose fault was it?”

And that is a completely different mode of thinking.

One that is more likely to make collaboration worse than better.

Results-Oriented Thinking Has No Room for Pull or Push Responsibility

If you follow this idea through consistently, it becomes quite clear.

Results-oriented people ask a different question:

What do we need to do to achieve our goal?

Not:

Who was actually supposed to do what here?

That may sound trivial, but it makes a huge difference.

Because the moment you focus on the outcome, many other things suddenly become irrelevant:

• Whether it is “your job”
• Whether it was formally your responsibility
• Whether someone else was supposed to handle it

If you see what needs to be done, you do it.

Not because you have to.

But because you want to achieve the result.

A Simple Example

Imagine you are walking through a hotel.

There is a napkin lying on the floor.

Now you have two options:

1. You think: “Not my job.”
2. You pick it up.

Both reactions are understandable.

But only one moves the system closer to the desired outcome: a clean hotel.

And that is exactly the point.

Communication Is Always a Shared Responsibility

One particularly interesting point from the episode is the topic of communication.

This is where the problem of pull versus push responsibility becomes especially clear.

We often think in categories like:

• The sender is responsible
• The recipient is responsible

But in reality, communication only works when both sides contribute.

A simple example:

You say, “Bring some cold cuts.”

The other person brings something back.

But you had something very specific in mind.

So what happened?

Formally, you could say:

• You should have been more specific → push responsibility
• The other person should have asked → pull responsibility

Both are true.

And at the same time, neither helps you move forward.

Because the outcome is still wrong.

Niklas Luhmann expressed this idea very clearly: communication is not simply about sending information, but about achieving understanding.

That means:

As long as the intended outcome has not been achieved, the communication was not successful.

Regardless of who is “to blame.”

Why We Still Fall Into This Trap

The answer is very human.

When something goes wrong, pressure builds.

And that pressure triggers certain reflexes:

• self-protection
• justification
• shifting responsibility

It is perfectly normal to want to take yourself out of the line of fire.

The problem is:

The price you pay is high.

Because the moment you shift responsibility away from yourself, you also give up something else:

Your ability to shape the outcome.

Without realizing it, you decide not to act.

And instead, you wait for someone else to fix the problem.

The Real Lever: Rethinking Responsibility

A shift in perspective can make a huge difference here.

Responsibility does not mean:

“Who is to blame?”

Responsibility means:

“Who can provide a good response?”

That is a significant difference.

Because suddenly, it is no longer about who is responsible for what.

It is about effectiveness.

And that automatically shifts your focus:

• away from defending your position
• toward actively shaping the outcome

What This Changes in Everyday Work

Once you take this idea seriously, your behavior changes surprisingly quickly.

You stop waiting.

You stop arguing about responsibility.

And you start taking action.

That might mean:

• explaining something twice
• asking questions when something is unclear
• proactively reaching out to others
• making sure information has actually been understood

Not because you have to.

But because you want to achieve the desired outcome.

Conclusion: The Wrong Question at the Wrong Time

The question of pull or push responsibility is not inherently wrong.

But it is often asked at the wrong time.

Because it directs attention backward.

Toward blame.

Toward justification.

What you need instead is to look forward:

What do we need now to make this work?

If you maintain that focus, the question of blame often becomes irrelevant.

If you would like to explore responsibility, communication, and results-oriented teamwork in more depth, listen to the full episode of Veränderungsstabil.

Listen to the podcast episode here

If you want to work with your team to spend less time discussing blame and achieve better results, let’s talk.

Schedule an appointment directly here

“We need a new strategy.”

This sentence comes up regularly in many companies. And it is usually followed by a process that consumes a great deal of energy. There is analysis, discussion, and drafting. In the end, a document emerges that is well structured, carefully thought through, and often quite extensive.

And yet, surprisingly little often happens afterwards.

The strategy is distributed, perhaps even presented. But it fails to create any real impact. Employees nod, return to their day-to-day work, and carry on as before. Not because they are resistant to change. Often, they simply have not truly understood what the strategy means for them.

This is exactly where the conversation with Anne M. Schüller becomes interesting. She draws an important distinction that many organizations overlook. Companies do not have a strategy problem. They have a narrative problem.

A narrative is more than a story. It is the framework that gives stories meaning in the first place. It provides a layer of meaning that creates orientation. While facts and figures need to be processed, stories have a more immediate impact. They help us understand connections and form our own perspective.

This also explains why many strategies fail to gain traction. They describe what is supposed to happen, but they do not answer the question of why it is worth being part of it. And people automatically fill that gap themselves.

However, they do not do so based on official corporate communication, but on what they experience every day.

This brings us to a central idea from the conversation: the distinction between the front stage and the back stage.

The front stage is where official communication takes place. Strategies, mission statements, presentations. Everything appears consistent, carefully considered, and often framed in positive terms.

Backstage, a different picture emerges.

This is where people talk, comment, and interpret what is happening. In conversations between colleagues, in meetings without an agenda, and in brief exchanges throughout the day. And this is precisely where the narratives that truly shape an organization emerge.

When the front stage and the back stage no longer align, the official story loses credibility. People then take their cues from what they tell each other, not from what they are officially told.

This dynamic becomes particularly visible during periods of change. Many organizations invest considerable effort in change processes. They restructure workflows, define objectives, and implement new tools. What is often underestimated is the influence of existing narratives.

Because once stories such as “This will fail again anyway” or “The people at the top make decisions without us” have taken hold within an organization, they become more powerful than any presentation.

They may not be based on logic. But they are rooted in lived experience. And that is precisely what makes them so persistent.

This leads to an important point. Change rarely fails because of a lack of logic. It fails because the stories that already exist within the organization are not taken into account.

One particularly interesting idea from the conversation is that we spend a large part of our time mentally living in the future. We think about what might happen, what will happen, or what we fear could happen. These mental images directly influence our behavior.

When these images are predominantly negative, they create a defensive mindset. When they are constructive, they create momentum.

And this is precisely where many organizations underestimate a powerful lever.

Narratives are not neutral. They have an impact. They influence how people make decisions, assess risks, and respond to change.

When a company succeeds in creating a clear, meaningful, and credible vision of the future, something fundamental changes. People begin to connect with it. Not because they have to, but because they understand why it makes sense.

For leadership, this represents a shift. It is no longer enough to define goals and manage their implementation. Leadership also means creating meaning. Making connections. Telling stories that provide direction.

And that does not begin with sending messages. It begins with listening.

The key question is not which story should be told. The key question is which stories already exist. Which narratives have become established backstage.

Only when these become visible is it possible to work with them.

Ultimately, much of this comes down to a simple but challenging idea. The future is not created through planning alone. It is also shaped by what people believe about that future.

And those beliefs are strongly influenced by stories.

Or, to put it another way:

Strategies provide direction.

Narratives determine whether people follow it.

If you would like to explore narratives, corporate culture, and effective change in more depth, listen to the full episode of Veränderungsstabil with Anne M. Schüller.

Listen to the podcast episode here

If you want to work on developing clear visions of the future and creating real momentum in your organization, let’s talk.

Schedule an appointment directly here

Mindfulness is everywhere.

In coaching.

In companies.

On LinkedIn.

Even on wine bottles at the supermarket.

And most of the time, the message seems pretty clear:

If you are stressed, you need more mindfulness.

If you are overwhelmed, you need more resilience.

If you are struggling, you need to work on yourself.

But this is exactly where it is worth stopping for a moment.

Because what actually happens when we start treating every form of strain as an individual problem?

That is exactly what I discussed with Katrin Fischer in this episode of Veränderungsstabil. She is an author and podcaster who has explored in depth why mindfulness has long since become more than just a practice. It has become an ideology.

When the System Is the Problem, but You Are Expected to Be the Solution

One idea from the conversation particularly stands out.

Many people find themselves in situations that put them under strain:

A chaotic work environment.
Poor leadership.
Unclear processes.
Feeling overwhelmed in everyday life.

And what happens then?

Instead of questioning the system, we question the individual.

“Why not take a resilience course?”
“You need to get better at dealing with stress.”
“Try mindfulness.”

At first glance, that sounds reasonable. But on closer inspection, something fundamental shifts.

Responsibility moves.

Away from the system.
Toward the individual.

Katrin puts this very clearly: mindfulness is often used to individualize collective problems.

The Hidden Logic Behind It

Once you think this through, it becomes quite revealing.

Because the implicit message is:

• You are suffering? Then something must be wrong with you.
• You are exhausted? Then you are not resilient enough.
• You are angry? Then you need to get your emotions under control.

And this is where the real problem begins.

Emotions do not disappear simply because we try to meditate them away. They are often signals that something is wrong.

Or, to put it more simply:

Maybe your reaction is perfectly healthy, and the system is not.

Why Anger Is More Important Than We Think

One particularly interesting point in the conversation is the role of emotions.

Especially anger.

Anger does not have a good reputation in organizations. It is seen as unprofessional. Inappropriate. Something you should “keep under control.”

Yet anger serves an important purpose.

Anger tells us when boundaries have been crossed.
Anger provides energy for change.
Anger is often the starting point for improvement.

When we teach people to simply breathe their anger away, something important happens:

We take away the impulse to change things.

Katrin puts it very clearly: when emotions are treated solely as something to be regulated, we eventually lose the energy needed for real change.

Mindfulness Works, but Not Everywhere

At this point, it is important to make a clear distinction.

Mindfulness itself is not the problem.

Quite the opposite. It can be genuinely helpful in our personal lives.

For example:

• to gain some distance
• to organize our thoughts
• to cope better with stress

The problem begins when mindfulness is applied everywhere.

Including in situations that actually require structural solutions.

One example from the conversation makes this particularly clear:

If a system constantly overwhelms you and causes you to lose sleep, mindfulness training will not solve the underlying problem.

What will help is a better system.

Why We Keep Looking Inward

One of the central ideas from the episode is what is known as the “self-world relationship.”

The observation behind it is this:

We are increasingly looking inward.
And less and less outward.

That means:

We believe we need to change ourselves in order to solve problems.
But we are becoming less convinced that the world itself can be changed.

That has consequences.

Because when every challenge becomes an internal task, we lose sight of the idea that systems themselves can be shaped and changed.

Or, to put it another way:

If everything is a mindset problem, structural problems cease to exist.

An Example Everyone Can Relate To

Imagine your train is delayed.

What often happens today?

You get advice like:

• Don’t get upset
• Make good use of the time
• Stay calm
• Listen to a podcast

At first, that sounds pragmatic.

But it ignores an important question:

Why is the train late in the first place?

Because that is not a law of nature. It is the result of decisions, structures, and priorities.

And this is where the difference between two perspectives becomes clear:

• One says: Change your reaction
• The other says: Change the conditions

Both have their place.

But right now, the first perspective dominates almost entirely.

Why This Is Dangerous for Organizations

For companies, this way of thinking has very real consequences.

Because when problems are systematically individualized, several things happen:

• Feedback becomes less frequent
• Criticism is avoided
• Problems remain unresolved

And over time, a dangerous effect emerges:

People adapt instead of improving things.

In the short term, that may feel like stability.

In the long term, it is exactly the opposite.

Because organizations lose their ability to self-correct.

What Helps Instead

The solution is not to get rid of mindfulness.

The solution is to put it in the right context.

Above all, that means making room for both:

• Working on yourself
• And working on the system

And most importantly:

Learning to distinguish between the two again.

For example:

• Is this a personal issue or a structural one?
• Do I need to adapt, or does something need to change?
• Would coaching help, or does the system require a decision?

These questions alone can already shift your perspective.

Conclusion: Not Everything Is Yours to Fix

Mindfulness can help.

But it is not the answer to everything.

If we start individualizing every form of strain, we lose something essential:

The ability to question and change systems.

And that is the core invitation of this episode:

Don’t automatically assume that you are the problem.

Sometimes, it is worth asking whether the world around you might need to change too.

If you would like to explore the discussion around mindfulness, resilience, and structural problems in organizations in more depth, listen to the full episode of Veränderungsstabil with Katrin Fischer.

Listen to the podcast episode here

If you want to work with your team or organization to understand the real causes of stress and drive sustainable change, let’s talk.

Schedule an appointment directly here