Can you guess the movie… and then the soft skill?

Not your average movie quiz ;)

Let us challenge you. Can you recognise a movie by just reading the line(s)?

Movie No1There’s an old saying: “For want of a nail, the horseshoe was lost.For want of a horseshoe, the steed was lost. For want of a steed, the message was not delivered.For want of an undelivered message, the war was lost”.Movie No2“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.”“It’s the job that’s never started as takes longest to finish…”Movie No3“We are seeing a globalisation of indifference. There is a culture of conflict, which makes us think only of ourselves. Makes us live in soap bubbles which, however lovely, are also insubstantial. We’ve become used to the suffering of others. It doesn’t affect me. No one in our world feels responsible. Who is responsible for the blood of our brothers and sisters? The refugees washed up on the shores of the Mediterranean? I don’t have anything to do with it. Must be someone else. Certainly, not me. When no one is to blame everyone is to blame.”

SO… How did that go? (Did we already mention you could google? Did we also mention we are giving the movies away in a sec?)

For now, keep reading. One last challenge, before you get your hands on the quiz answers: can you find which soft skill all the aforementioned movie quotes refer to?

They all refer to responsibility- which is a soft skill as well.

Responsibility is defined as “the state, or fact, of having a duty to deal with something- or of having control over someone”. Acknowledging and owning responsibility is not an issue only when you are (SPOILER ALERT!) a Yakuza crime boss (movie #1), a young hobbit walking out his front door towards adventure (movie #2), or the Pope (movie #3).

Responsibility is an inevitable requirement for the survival of human groups. People living in any kind of society always exist in certain social relationships. In that context, each and every one of us inevitably has to play various roles in social life, living up to our responsibilities or obligations. Guess what- we are not excelling in it. Why is that?

There are many reasons; blaming other people inflates your ego and makes you feel better about yourself in the process. Pointing out how someone else is in the wrong, automatically makes you in the right. Ownership requires self-awareness, resilience, ability to cope with your failures and mistakes.

In other words; Responsibility takes soft skills. Where should we look for them?

Unfortunately, education is still not focused on enhancing the soft skills it takes to be responsible. School may constantly demand responsibility from students- but demanding is not the synonym for “enhancing” (if only it were that easy!) Instead, from an early age, we all learn what is right and wrong, fair and unfair. Our parents, our teachers, and society instills this in us.But this ingrained sense of justice also leads to judgment, shame, and guilt. And so we also learn that side-stepping blame allows us to avoid these uncomfortable emotions.

Lie, divert attention elsewhere and shift the blame and you might just get off scot-free. “It wasn’t me, it was her fault”. Pushing responsibility onto others is often a pattern of behavior that starts when we are young and continues well into adulthood.

But what are the consequences & possible challenges if you don’t grow to be responsible & act accordingly?

Researchers consider responsibility as a characteristic of the personality. Less responsible students have difficulties in the interpersonal sphere, a lack of aspiration for leadership, and a passive level of the world change. It is well-known that externals confer responsibility for the events on other people, fate, and destiny.

Why is Responsibility an emergency today?

“It’s a world where you think actions have no consequence, where guilt is cloaked by anonymity, where there are no fingerprints. An invisible universe filled with strangers, interconnected online and disconnected in life.” (Perfect Stranger, 2007)

In the current era of rapid social change with multicultural conflicts and multiple values, moral indifference and lack of responsibility have become the universal problems that people of insight worry about.

The level of social responsibility practices among students toward moral dilemmas and ownership aspects can be strongly predicted by the level of responsibility enhancement provided by the education they receive.

“We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers — you can blame anyone but never blame yourself. It’s never your fault. But it’s always your fault , because if you wanted to change, you’re the one who has got to change. It’s as simple as that, isn’t it?”~ Katharine Hepburn