Plenty of Blame to Go Around

As Walter studied the next slide, Ellen's position became clear. The slide showed her root cause diagram with colored bubbles indicating which department had contributed which causes, and Geoff owned the largest share. If she was playing the blame game, Geoff was her target.

To prevent a battle between Ellen and Geoff, Walter offered, "I can see there's plenty of blame to go around, though I'm sure we could debate the allocations."

Walter's tactic might be successful. Distributing blame across the entire team is one way to prevent scapegoating. It also has an unintended consequence — it validates the idea of assigning blame.

Blame is toxic to organizations. When blame is in the air, punishment follows. To avoid punishment, we deflect blame from ourselves, or allocate it to others. We'll even take action to insulate ourselves from blame — we dodge involvement, withhold contributions, and make protective "CYA" statements.

The ensuing confusion prevents the organization and its people from learning from failures. Organizations and people who cannot learn from failures inevitably repeat them.

When blame is in the air,
punishment followsBlame-oriented cultures (B cultures) seek causes so they can punish, while Responsibility-oriented cultures (R cultures) seek causes so they can learn. To identify the culture of your organization, look at how people use language, how they acknowledge failure, how they understand failure, and how they look at the past.

Using language

In B cultures, people "take the blame," "get tagged," "get dinged," or "take the fall." Generally, B cultures have "post mortems" while R cultures have "retrospectives."

Acknowledging failure

B cultures have difficulty acknowledging failure, because acknowledgment precedes blame, and blame precedes punishment. Failing projects live on, long past the time when they should have been cancelled. R cultures acknowledge failures more easily, because they see them as opportunities to learn. Projects that should be cancelled (or restarted) are.

Understanding failure

To limit the resulting punishment, B cultures think failure is caused by the actions of a single person or organization. R cultures see failure as the result of a complex network of causes. They do this, in part, to maximize the resulting learning.

Looking at the past

In B cultures, retrospectives — if they are held at all — are starved of resources. When retrospectives do occur, they're tense, painful, dangerous affairs in which people withhold comments that could otherwise lead to real progress. R cultures invest in retrospectives, enlisting professional assistance to ensure the safety of participants. The organization and its people both benefit.

Consistent with B culture thinking, those who live in B cultures often blame the CEO or upper management for their problems. Although changing the culture from B to R does indeed require change at the top, everyone must change. Change can start anywhere. It can start with you.  Top    Next Issue

Is your organization embroiled in Change? Are you managing a change effort that faces rampant cynicism, passive non-cooperation, or maybe even outright revolt? Read 101 Tips for Managing Change to learn how to survive, how to plan and how to execute change efforts to inspire real, passionate support. Order Now!

For indicators that an organizational culture is a blaming culture, see "Top Ten Signs of a Blaming Culture," Point Lookout for February 16, 2005. The words blame and accountability are often used interchangeably, but they have very different meanings. See "Is It Blame or Is It Accountability?," Point Lookout for December 21, 2005, for a discussion of blame and accountability. For the effects of blame on the investigations of unwanted outcomes, see "Obstacles to Finding the Reasons Why," Point Lookout for April 4, 2012. For more on blaming and blaming organizations, see "Organizational Coping Patterns."

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Organizational Change:

On Beginnings

A new year has begun, and I'm contemplating beginnings. Beginnings can inspire, and sometimes lead to letdown when our hopes or expectations aren't met. How can we handle beginnings more powerfully?

Comfortable Ignorance

When we suddenly realize that what we've believed is wrong, or that what we've been doing won't work, our fear and discomfort can cause us to persevere in our illusions. If we can get better at accepting reality and dealing with it, we can make faster progress toward real achievement.

The True Costs of Cost-Cutting

The metaphor "trimming the fat" rests on the belief that some parts of the organization are expendable, and we can remove them with little impact on the remainder. Ah, if only things actually worked that way...

The Restructuring-Fear Cycle: II

When enterprises restructure, reorganize, downsize, outsource, lay off, or make other organizational adjustments, they usually focus on financial health. Here's Part II of an exploration of how the fear induced by these changes can lead to the need for further restructuring.

Changing Blaming Cultures

Culture change in organizations is always challenging, but changing a blaming culture presents special difficulties. Here are three reasons why.

See also Organizational Change for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming October 17: Overt Belligerence in Meetings

Some meetings lose their way in vain attempts to mollify a belligerent participant who simply will not be mollified. Here's one scenario that fits this pattern. Available here and by RSS on October 17.

And on October 24: Conversation Irritants: I

Conversations at work can be frustrating even when everyone tries to be polite, clear, and unambiguous. But some people actually try to be nasty, unclear, and ambiguous. Here's Part I of a small collection of their techniques. Available here and by RSS on October 24.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenZNuOLWaBzzCHSVwKner@ChacbytTTbYTxBbfYpxxoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, USD 28.99)

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info

Public seminars

The Power Affect: How We Express Our Personal Power

Many people who possess real organizational power have a characteristic demeanor. It's the way they project their presence. I call this the power affect. Some people — call them power pretenders — adopt the power affect well before they attain significant organizational power. Unfortunately for their colleagues, and for their organizations, power pretenders can attain organizational power out of proportion to their merit or abilities. Understanding the power affect is therefore important for anyone who aims to attain power, or anyone who works with power pretenders. Read more about this program.

• A recording of a program presented 6:00 PM June 29 (Eastern Time), Monthly Webinar, Technobility Webinar Series. You can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.