Comment by cj
5 months ago
what you’re describing is not someone who is accountable for something.
In the hiring example, perhaps the person A stops being accountable for hiring someone successful in the role, and rather they are accountable for successfully hiring persons B who is capable of hiring someone to fill the role.
Essentially creating an accountability chain. If you want to describe a logical chain of accountability instead as a “accountability sink”, then I’d go along with that.
It’s true that accountability chains can be difficult to keep track of and the longer they get, the blurrier they get.
The comments here are grossly oversimplifying this concept.
Sure you are a little bit responsible if your hiring manager hires a dud, but not as much. Similarly your hiring manager is not as responsible as the dud, accountability loses power in each chain.
You can fire your hiring manager and pick another one if he fails too often for example