Looking to Advance Your Business? Avoid the Blame Game

Our society is ridden with guilt-both our own, and that we try to assign to others by placing blame for mistakes. Politics seems to be the most public arena for this power struggle to play out, but even a small business with more than one participant can easily fall prey to the blame game.

Maybe it falls under the category of "human nature" or our own upbringing, but unfortunately it's too easy to blame someone else rather than try to make things better, focusing on the negative. If you want to improve anything in your business, this can introduce a slow poison in the workplace that ends in failure. It's even possible to say that the biggest obstacle to improvement is the need to blame someone else.

The issue with laying blame isn't so much in making someone take responsibility, but with the strong and volatile emotions that come with the actions. In a business environment this can be especially deadly. Workers who act out in anger are less likely to concentrate their energy on preventing problems that may result. Instead they'll channel energy that should be used for production into defending themselves, causing others to increase the pressure in turn.

If a fellow worker or subordinate has somehow made a mistake that affects the company, your approach makes all the difference between causing a scene and simply focusing on damage control or improvements. Which would be a better alternative, saying "It's your fault the rest of us have to stay two hours later to complete this project" or pulling the employee aside (in private) and reminding him the report was supposed to have been received by the accounting department two hours ago?

Whatever your industry's focus, if your concern lies in continual improvement and the overall efficiency of your organization, the fine line between blame and problem solving is a crucial division. As soon as the problem occurs, or as soon as it's discovered, try to keep the group's focus on what should be done, not how or why it happened (or who did it.) Understanding that sub-par performance may be the result of any number of issues that may or may not be controllable will help you concentrate on preventing that issue from re-occurring.

Of course, this doesn't mean you should make excuses for the employee. That switches from blame to its sibling, favoritism-the exact opposite of blame, but no less toxic to the work environment.

Also, don't forget one of the most important parts of being a role model in the office-you are always being watched, even when you think you aren't. Your words and actions, or lack thereof, will speak volumes to the people who work under you. If you demonstrate the problem-solving method in all aspects of work and not only when it's convenient to do so, when the opportunity for blame presents itself your subordinates will be less likely to form a mob and attack the scapegoat.

Unfortunately, society makes it too easy to place blame on others without assigning any actual responsibility. Indeed, it becomes nearly impossible for someone to actually take that responsibility when so many negative emotions are aimed at the one who does so. By modeling behavior that focuses on what occurred and how to fix it without focusing on what someone "should have" done, you'll be able to keep your business moving steadily forward rather than gazing scornfully at the past.