Changing Blaming Cultures

When organizations undertake to change their cultures, the cultures sometimes behave as if they were unwilling to change. They can behave almost as if they had minds and wills of their own. Because this phenomenon is especially noticeable when we're transforming a blaming culture, it's useful to understand how blaming cultures "fight back."

An organizational culture is a blaming culture if blame plays a significant role in regulating behavior to ensure compliance with organizational expectations. Blaming cultures have difficulty reaching high levels of performance, in part because their people generally fear taking even reasonable risks. For example, a fear of being blamed for insubordination can cause an employee to refrain from questioning a superior's decision, even when that decision ought to be questioned. For more examples of the traits of blaming cultures, see "Top Ten Signs of a Blaming Culture," Point Lookout for February 16, 2005.

When we try to reduce the incidence of blaming in a culture, we encounter special challenges. Here are three examples of what makes changing a blaming culture so difficult.

Blaming becomes covert

Those advocating for removing blame as a management tool are likely to encounter supervisors who are accustomed to "killing the messenger." Change agents might sense progress when people deliver bad news without being subject to retribution, but the reality can be rather different.

Supervisors might not immediately "kill the messenger," but they might eventually get around to it. For example, they can delay the execution for months or years to make it seem unrelated to the message delivery incident. The actual execution can take on any form, such as termination during a layoff or reorganization. In some cases, retribution can be delivered not by the offending supervisor, but by a proxy.

Discussions of blaming are taboo

In a blaming When blaming is a cultural
trait, changing the culture
is especially challengingculture that's attempting a transition, questioning incidents, procedures, or policies that are illustrative of the former blaming approach to behavior management can be interpreted as blaming and criticism. People who raise these issues are sometimes criticized for manifesting the old behaviors. The old ways remain in place because we regard questioning them as examples of the old ways.

It's axiomatic that we cannot change what we cannot talk about. Unless we can openly discuss the costs and constraints of the status quo, coming to consensus as a group about ways to transform the status quo can remain out of reach.

Change is blamed for hiccups

All change entails loss. All culture change degrades organizational performance temporarily, as people try new ways of working together. But in blaming cultures, the habit of blaming leads to blaming the change itself for the temporary productivity loss.

Instead of accepting the loss as a cost of change, the change is criticized for the loss. That can lead to rejection of the change on the basis of degraded performance.

Once blame settles into an organizational culture, it provides the culture and its people with all the tools they need to defend the status quo.  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!

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:

Now We're in Chaos

Among models of Change, the Satir Change Model has been especially useful for me. It describes how people and systems respond to change, and handles well situations like the one that affected us all on September Eleventh.

Conventional Foolishness

Every specialization has a set of beliefs, often called "conventional wisdom." When these beliefs are so obvious that they're unquestioned and even unnoticed, there's an opportunity to leap ahead of the pack — by questioning the conventional wisdom.

Plenty of Blame to Go Around

You may have heard the phrase "plenty of blame to go around," or maybe you've even used it yourself. Although it sometimes does bring an end to immediate finger pointing, it also validates blame as a general approach. Here's how to end the blaming by looking ahead.

Training Bounceback

Within a week after we've learned some new tool or technique, sometimes even less, we're back to doing things the old way. It's as if the training never even happened. Why? And what can we do to change this?

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.

See also Organizational Change and Emotions at Work for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming December 7: Reaching Agreements in Technological Contexts

Reaching consensus in technological contexts presents special challenges. Problems can arise from interactions between the technological elements of the issue at hand, and the social dynamics of the group addressing that issue. Here are three examples. Available here and by RSS on December 7.

And on December 14: Straw Man Variants

The straw man fallacy is a famous rhetorical fallacy. Using it distorts debate and can lead groups to reach faulty conclusions. It's ad readily recognized, but it has some variants that are more difficult to spot. When unnoticed, trouble looms. Available here and by RSS on December 14.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenZLkFdSHmlHvCaSsuner@ChacbnsTPttsdDaRAswloCanyon.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, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

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 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info