Who do you blame when things go wrong?
I generally blame myself. What did I do that led to this outcome? I quickly imagine what I could have done differently, and beat myself up for not having thought of that in advance to get a different result. Example: there was a lot of internal cursing at myself when we started carving the turkey on Thanksgiving and it was undercooked because I had pulled it out of the oven too early.
A lot of people default to blaming others. When something goes wrong, it’s not their fault, but it’s other people who should have done something differently. They point fingers rather than accept any responsibility for the outcome.
(Brief aside: a personal or work relationship between these two types of people can quickly turn toxic. If person A blames themselves when things go wrong, and person B blames others, then the one thing they can both agree on is that person A is always to blame. This often leads to A burning out in misery at work, or sacrificing themselves in a personal relationship. Watch out for this pattern if you tend to be person A.)
Some people blame the world. “There’s nothing I could have done – that’s just the way it is”. They suffer without believing that anything can change.
Tracy Goss calls this the Universal Human Paradigm in her book The Last Word on Power:
“There is a way things should be. And when they are that way, they are right.
When they’re not that way, something is wrong with you, them or it.”
Goss points out that instead of locking into any of these blaming options, we can take responsibility for our actions (and only our actions), and make new choices to try to create new outcomes. It means letting go of blame, and focusing solely on what you will do next to change the outcomes you are getting.
When you don’t get the result you want, what can you learn from the experience? What different actions can you experiment with to try to get a different result?
#youhaveachoice #leadership #blame #ownership #responsibility