|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
More often than not, it might seem that the easiest way out of troubles or unfavourable situations in our personal or professional lives is to point an accusing finger to someone else. Interestingly, team members, colleagues, managers and leaders are not left out in this “profession” of blaming others. Sadly, the blame game has succeeded in causing failures in the government arena, businesses and in organizations. This is because; a lot of people have been wired wrongly to first and foremost point an accusing finger to someone when things go wrong, without even seeking for solutions. We are not responsibility oriented. The bad news is that allowing the blame game to blossom in any organization is not only destructive, but might end up giving us more than we bargained for.
Let‘s ponder on the scenario below:
Imagine someone ignoring a little fire that he sighted in another department and that little fire could have been quenched easily even with minimal effort. But because that particular person felt neither him nor his department would take the blame for the fire breakout, he did not raise any alarm until the fire engulfed the entire building.
When management started making investigation as to what caused the fire, surprisingly, the same person that saw the fire first and did not act immediately started blaming the other department for being the cause of the inferno.
It is quite obvious that the fire could have been put out, but someone who I call – the Chief Blame Officer (someone who has mastered the art of blame game) on seeing someone or something to be blamed would simply hide his or her solution. All because, he or she would be happy seeing someone else blamed – for an act he or she could have solved.
Now the question everyone needs to answer is: who then suffers after the building has been engulfed by fire? Definitely, the organization will suffer, the Chief Blame Officer will suffer, and the other people in the department where the fire started from will also suffer – so in the end everyone suffers.
Take away for all of us: At the end of the day both the players of the blame game and all the fans are defeated.
The truth is nowhere in the world has the blame game done the organization any good except harm. Great organizations have moved away from focusing on who is right or wrong (that is the blame game mentality) to focusing on how do I contribute to making the organization succeed? Here the emphasis is for the organization to win and not individuals. Organizations should not be seen as law courts and the rule of the game should not be about winning a law suit and punishing someone who has been blamed, but ensuring that we help one another achieve the goals of the organization. Everyone has 100% responsibility in making sure that organization achieves its vision.
If there is any virus to fight against in organizations, it should be the “Blame Game Virus”- where people are not taking responsibility of growing their organizations. The reality is that no organization (with the current rate of business uncertainties) can attain its rightful position if this unwanted virus is not dealt with. Surprisingly, the leaders, executives and their collective workforce are affected by this debilitating virus, and guess what; organizations are at the receiving ends. Any organization that encourages this blame game will end up stifling creativity, innovation and productivity – the three key ingredients for growth.
Unbelievably, someone in a team might have a solution to something or might have an idea of how best to resolve an issue, but simply because he/she was not made the team head might decide to do nothing in achieving the desired result. In a situation where by that particular team’s project did not go well, that same person may be the first to shift the blame to someone else or will decide to proffer solutions when the damage has been done already – probably to “shine” or appear superior to others. Organizations suffer a great deal whenever people have developed the mindset of shifting the blame to someone else when they ought to have helped. Instead of creating blames, we should help one another to create value for the organization.
The era we are now in the business world is not that of who is wrong or right, who is to be blamed or not, but the era of helping the weak in your organization to achieve better results. The truth is that some are weak in some areas and strong in other areas. The idea is to complement one another for the betterment of the organization that pays our salaries.
Points to ponder:
•Do we achieve any positive results when we shift or heap blame on people? Instead we create resentment, conflicts, strife, enmity, disloyalty – and all these will hit the bottom-line unfavourably. Remember the idea of fighting oneself.
•What do we want to achieve by blaming people in the workplace? Is it to preserve our ego or help to grow the organization?
•Before you blame someone, always ask yourself, have I done all I can to help out in this situation?
Final note:
Whether we like it or not, the blame game will end up destroying us and our businesses. Even if the blame is justified – taking action is better at least for the sake of your organization. Organizations were not founded to act as a law court in discovering who is right or not in the blame game, but were founded to deliver results to all shareholders. When we take responsibility for our actions and help the organization to win, everybody wins. Our focus should not be for individuals to win first, because, when an individual wins, an organization might not succeed. The reason for the individual winning might be to satisfy his/her ego or selfishness. From today onwards, let our goal be to move from “creating blames” to having “together we win” mindset. Like Carl Jung said, “No one wins the blame game”, and I also add that “No one should let an organization lose the winning game”- then again this is possible when we all take ownership and full responsibility and quit looking at who to be blamed.
Oh, back to the “Chief Blame Officers”, no matter how they perfect their act, they will never win the game – as long as their organization is losing.
So, let us stop looking for someone to blame in our organization when things are going wrong – there are two things we can do: take ownership and fix it or show concern for solutions. And as CEOs and managers, getting your people to the point of beginning to do these two things – to me is the surest path to sustainable progress.
If you are earnestly tired of your people’s inconsistent performance and unending blame game – that destroys your organization’s growth and you want to have people who will take ownership of the results, then you may need to consider the “From Chief Blame Officer to Chief Performance Officer’s Program”.
‘Uju Onwuzulike
