Blame or Solutions?

Blame is natural

The minute something goes wrong we seek out somebody to blame.  Somebody to take the rap.  It is human nature to find a fall guy when things go belly up.

Blame is easy

We live in a connected world.  We work within a mesh of colleagues, customers and suppliers, so there are always plenty of people involved in whatever has gone wrong.  It is easy to find somebody to point the finger at, justly or not.

Some managers have made finding blame an art form.

The search for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

Blame stops action

Once we have found somebody to blame the process is simple:

1. Sacrifice them (either a minor blood letting or full on slaughter at the altar of redundancy).
2. Ignore the problem.  It has all got quite unpleasant.
3. Sweep the whole sorry incident under the carpet.  Nobody wants to be associated with failure.

Once blame has been established and the guilty have been punished we move on.

Blame isn’t a solution

Sweeping things under the carpet doesn’t stop them from happening again.

Imagine if a pilot fell asleep at the controls of an aeroplane.  It wouldn’t be hard to find the man to hold accountable.  It was the pilot who fell asleep after all.

• He should have stayed awake…
• He should be punished… 

Sack the pilot and we can all go back to our business as before.  The skies will be safe again. Won’t they?

Unfortunately sacking one pilot for falling asleep won’t stop another one from getting some shut eye. Pilots fall asleep at an alarming rate.

A better approach

Dig a little deeper, and find out why the pilot fell asleep. Then do something about it.

• Could you prevent tired pilots from taking the controls of planes?
• Could you change working conditions so pilots aren’t tired?
• Could you make pilots’ jobs more interesting to prevent them from falling asleep?
• Could you devise a system to wake the pilot if he gets drowsy?
• Could you warn others if the pilot falls asleep?

If you start to ask the questions the solutions appear.  There are a hundred and one things that could be done to reduce the chances of pilots falling asleep at the controls of an aeroplane.  But if your approach is to blame the pilot and then sack him then you won’t find any of them…

Blame limits progress

Finding somebody to blame closes our minds and stops us from learning.

Poor managers find blame, good managers find solutions.

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Image by Tamaar