Oh no, not again: When Accountability Failed Us
Part 1 of a Two-Part Series on Rethinking Accountability and Restoring Trust.
When something goes wrong, what we’re really trying to restore isn’t control—it’s trust.
“Oh no… not again.”
That was my first thought when the call came in.
A student had fallen—badly injured—and required a helicopter evacuation to a hospital.
We were only about 16 months removed from a headline-grabbing frostbite incident that had shaken our organization to its core. Six students had been injured. Two were flown to Denver for treatment. It was heartbreaking, disorienting, and deeply unsettling.
We were still recovering. Still trying to make sense of it. Still adjusting.
The underlying mantra since that incident had been clear: “This can never happen again.”
And yet… here we were.
The Default Response
In the aftermath of the frostbite incident, we did what many organizations do when trust is shaken.
We acted decisively. We made changes. And we held the people involved accountable.
Some staff were let go. Others were reassigned. New leadership was brought in to right the ship. We added training. We updated policies.
It was a show of strength—a message to everyone, internally and externally: “We’ve got this.”
Mistakes—especially serious ones—have consequences.
It felt strong. It felt right. It felt like the responsible thing to do.
“We Will Hold People Accountable”
It’s one of the most common—and unquestioned—phrases in leadership.
I’ve used it too.
But if I’m being honest, I never fully understood what it meant.
And I’m not sure I fully believed it. It felt narrow. Lopsided. Incomplete. At times, even dismissive.
What does it actually mean in practice anyways?
Does it mean punishment—demotion or termination? Public correction? Drawing a hard line?
At its core, I understood it as addressing a wrong and making it clear that the outcome was unacceptable.
But in reality, it often felt overly simplistic… even hollow.
The Hidden Assumption
“Holding people accountable” rests on a critical—and often invisible—assumption: That what should have been done was clear… and that it’s equally clear it wasn’t done.
But how often is that actually true?
How often is the “right” action obvious in the moment? And how often is it only obvious in hindsight?
Especially in complex environments like healthcare and behavioral healthcare—where conditions are dynamic, unpredictable, and full of competing demands.
No policy or training can fully account for that reality.
And Then It Happened Again
When this student fell, requiring a helicopter evacuation, we were still living in the shadow of our most traumatic incident in our company's history.
The fear resurfaced. The pressure intensified. The stakes were high.
And yet, despite all the decisive action we had taken—firings, reassignments, structural changes—here we were again.
The traditional approach hadn’t prevented the next crisis.
What We Actually Want
If we responded the same way—blame, punishment, a top-down approach—we knew it would only make things worse.
Because we had already seen what that approach did to us. It led to finger-pointing. People became defensive. Teams circled the wagons.
We grew hardened. Distrustful. Entrenched.
We stopped collaborating. We stopped trusting each other. Work became heavier—harder than it needed to be.
We lost our sense of togetherness.
And underneath all of that… We all craved something different.
We wanted reassurance— that we could handle this, that we were still capable, that we could trust each other again.
Where Accountability Falls Short
There are times when decisive, punitive action is necessary. Clear violations—like assault, embezzlement, or operating under the influence—require it.
But those cases are rare—likely 1–2% of incidents.
Most of the time, people are trying to do the right thing… and something still goes wrong.
That was true in both these cases.
And the way we responded to the frostbite incident didn’t just fail to prevent the next crisis—it created new problems.
It led to inefficiency. It eroded trust in leadership. It created fear. It likely caused people to hide issues rather than surface them.
It made us weaker, not stronger.
The Real Question
So what about the other 98%? The moments where people were doing their best—and still, something went wrong?
If we don’t default to blame… If we don’t rely on punishment, what do we do?
How do we restore trust?
It was hard to take that call. To learn that a student was injured, potentially seriously. I felt shock. Frustration. Confusion. And, I was really worried.
But I also knew this: We had to respond differently.
We couldn’t let this pull us further apart. We needed a way forward—one that allowed us to heal, to learn, and to rebuild trust.
In the second part of this series, I’ll share what we did—and how that shift became the beginning of something we didn’t expect: a very different kind of accountability.
Part 1 of a Two-Part Series on Rethinking Accountability and Restoring Trust.
