The Toxicity of "Blame" in an Organization!

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Through my years as a corporate management consultant, I have witnessed "the good", "the bad" and "the ugly" of projects, teams, and corporate cultures.  At the root of "the worst" that I have observed was the too often embraced behavior of "blame."  Blame is a very toxic behavior that will rapidly unravel the fabric of your organization.   Blame (finger pointing, always looking for external reasons for mistakes) hinders the ability to learn from those mistakes and become more effective.

When blame is accepted as part of the organization's culture, it will create very difficult work environments.  Research shows that people in the workplace tend to copy blaming as a behavior, whether consciously or unconsciously, thus perpetuating the problem. Scientific Studies show that when someone is the target of blame, their  brain to goes into  "fight or flight" protection mode.  This results in putting people on the defensive, shutting down their sharing of information, stifling their creativity, disengaging them from their work and creating work environments of negative mood and low morale.

We can combat the toxicity of blame through taking responsibility of our actions, owning our mistakes and using them as opportunities to learn and become more effective in our roles. Creating this type of non-blaming, own the mistake posture is also contagious and will be copied by the people around you.

One personal example that comes to mind was when I was an IT manager at a major financial institution and we had a major production problem.  This production problem was potentially going to put the firm at millions of dollars of negative exposure.  I was called into the office of a senior manager and he asked me, "Who do we Blame for this?"  "Someone has to pay for this mistake."  I said that I would not blame anyone because it was my issue.  He kept on badgering me for someone to blame and I went to his white board and said, "I don't blame and here is why."

I wrote the word BLAME on the whiteboard and then put a dash between the letters  B-L.  I then showed him that to Blame is to Be-Lame.  I explained to him that the word Lame means "disabled or ineffective" and that I was neither one of these.

He laughed and then said, "Witty, but I still need to know who we are going to blame for this incident."  I replied back to him..."you must then blame me."  He then said to me, "but that is not possible since  you were not the one who created the issue."  I said, "maybe, but the issue was created from within my organization." I then went back to his whiteboard and said, "and if you take another look at the word Blame...you'll se that it ends with the letters M-E."  "So if you want to blame somebody...you will have to blame me, Ron Krukowski."

With that, he just shook his head. I had effectively diffused this situation and a great deal of chaos in my organization was avoided.   As managers, it is our responsibility to create environments that are free from the toxicity of blame allowing people to be at ease to perform at their peak levels.

So remember, next time you or someone is ready to cast Blame on someone, remember that it is the Lame thing to do and ultimately it ends with (me)!

All the Best!

Ron

Comments

  1. VineetFebruary 13, 2013 at 11:08 AM

    Made for a very interesting read. Very relevant outside the PMO as well.

    ReplyDelete

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