No Blame, No Shame

Recently, I wrote the word “BLAME” on the dry erase board in my office.  Then I circled the word and crossed it out.  No more blame culture in the office.  Not only should we not blame our colleagues, but we should not internalize blame within ourselves.  Making a mistake or being incorrect should not carry a fear of being of blamed.

Work culture is interesting. Many companies are filled with overachievers, winners, know-it-alls, and competitive individuals.  In a vacuum, those characteristics bring high revenue and innovation.  I repeat, in a vacuum.  Those characteristics, without other balancing energies and characteristics, also bring stress, distrust, and an over-all toxic work environment.  Companies must strive to highlight and bring forth attributes such as resilience, kindness, adaptability, learning mindset, trust, and vulnerability. Why?  Because those characteristics will build a culture that stands the test of time and bring revenue and innovation, among other desired qualities that a corporation should value. 

I do not believe in blame, except when blaming my husband (side note: No perfection here, as you know, I am a work in progress). Blame in the workplace is especially detrimental to morale and the characteristics that are valued by and needed by corporation to thrive such as trust, accountability, learning mindset, resilience and respect.

There are several key reasons why blame has no place in the workplace.

(1)   Accountability: Blame removes any accountability and ownership of a misstep and opportunity for improvement. Pointing fingers at others means your own actions have no part in the problem.  This is especially problematic in a team dynamic and execution of the “we are one” philosophy. Blame prevents one from becoming a part of the solution because blaming others means it is not your issue and people do not participate in solutions for non-issues. Similarly, if you blame yourself, solution actioning becomes extremely difficult as you wallow in self-pity. For clarity, accountability is not blame and blame is not accountability.  The key distinction is with accountability an individual is willingly holding themselves responsible for a task, including the outcome, positive or negative.  Whereas blame is typically placed on a party by another party after the outcome is negative.  One may also blame themselves. That person focuses on the outcome being negative or wrong and is unable to separate that feeling of blame and baggage from a perspective of assessment and action.  Instead the person focuses on themselves and their feelings of self-criticism instead of working with the team or by themselves to take action on the opportunity, gaps, or whatever it may be.

(2) Learning: Learning goes hand in hand with informed risk taking.  If blame becomes ingrained in the culture, learning and application of the knowledge is negatively impacted. The employees no longer try new things.  Instead the employees become frozen due to fear of failure – which leads to blame.  That fear of blame will stunt learning growth.  Learning and failing need to be encouraged and accepted.  After all failure is the best teacher. 

(3)   Trust: This is probably the most important reason to actively attack any blame culture in the workplace.  If there is a blame culture, there is guaranteed to be a culture riddled with distrust.  Trust is the foundation of any sustainable high performing environment or team.  A lack of trust decreases collaboration and morale and creates a toxic culture. I could go on and on about the importance of trust, but I will not do so here,
perhaps in another post.    

In high performing work cultures, the goal is to learn, apply learnings, be respectful, be accountable, and trust each other for support.  Blame has no place.  And a little tip – no one cares whose fault it is.  A good leader wants to focus holistically on the team and the task at hand, together. Blame has no place (it bears repeating). 

So, how do you combat the blame culture? Where do you start? 

It never fails to start with calling it out.  Call out the issue.  Acknowledge the issue.  Writing the word “blame” and crossing it out on the dry erase board is acknowledgement that blame is an issue in the corporate culture.  A daily reminder to shift the mindset.  However, acknowledgement is only the first step.  Next steps depend on the team and the organization. Notwithstanding each organization’s peculiarities, increasing or
building trust is likely a good place to start. 

Have you worked in a blaming culture? How did your leader build trust?