Leadership Detectives
Leadership Detectives
GREAT LEADERS AVOID A BLAME CULTURE (# 1-34)
Episode 34 - Great Leaders Avoid A Blame Culture
Have you ever experienced working in a blame culture? I would be really surprised if you could honestly say "no, never".
Sadly, it can be the natural human response when things go wrong. Great leaders spot this behaviour and work hard to prevent this infectious 'disease' from taking hold.
Neil and I discuss how to spot it and how to try and prevent it from manifesting and damaging your business' quest to grow and develop; something most leaders strive for.
News, laws, and regulations are changing by the day. We get it. And at ADP, we're here to help guide you with up-to-the-minute compliance expertise. So you can pay your people accurately and on time, regardless of what each new day may bring. Learn more at adp.com.
SPEAKER_03:Hey guys, welcome back to Leadership Detective. I hope you're having a good week so far. Human emotions. Some of them can help us, some of them can hinder us. The one we want to talk about today is that of blame. If you're gonna blame culture in your organization, it can be so destructive. Looking at who made the mistake, why did they do it wrong? And trying to get rid of that from your business is the role of a leader. Leaders should stop that blame culture within their business and first of all try to understand it and then take action to remove it. On its own, it isn't everything. But if it's an underlying culture and then you've got that underlying behaviour, it could stifle the growth of your business and the positive development. So this episode is about understanding that and looking at what leaders can do to address that within their business. This episode, by the way, was suggested to us by one of our loyal listeners, James Loftus. So, James, this one's for you. Guys, hope you enjoy. Please take on board the lessons, and I hope it makes your business better. Take care.
SPEAKER_02:Good morning, and welcome to another episode of the Leadership Detectives, where we're trying to uncover clues of great leadership. And I'm delighted to be joined like I am every time on our 34th episode by my good friend Albert Joseph. How are you doing, mate?
SPEAKER_03:I'm really good. I'm really good. You're right. Episode 34. Fantastic. Really good, actually. How's your week been? How's it been? What have you been up to?
SPEAKER_02:Uh it's been all right. Yeah, no, I've had a busy week. I've um yeah, obviously here in this room, um, like everybody, uh, but not I haven't had any courses to teach this week. I've been doing some coaching and I've had some uh some kind of new projects I've been doing online, which has been really interesting. So learning new stuff, which has been uh been good fun. How about you?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, likewise, actually. I've had I've got work going on at home, as you know. So from my personal side, that's going on, which is really good. But on the business side, busy with the client I'm working with, but also potentially some new stuff coming up. So it's been a busy week, actually. There's a lot going on. Um, where are we now? When we're still in January, right? Just just man. I mean, it's kicked off and it's just been going crazy. I remember when we did the one you we recorded at the end of 2020, and you said, should we feel guilty about the fact that we've actually probably had a good year?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:But it's just come into this year and kept going, right? So I hope that's the same for our listeners out there, right? I hope you guys are having a good year. I hope it's kicked off well for you. But can we add value for you now?
SPEAKER_02:Let's see. And and you know, and I wanted to have a chat with you today as well, mate, because I've been a bit worried about our podcast um you know, listenings going down a bit, and you own podcasts, and I want to know what you're doing about it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it it isn't all my fault, right? Because you didn't tell me that I owned podcasts, I knew I was running with podcasts, but I didn't know I owned it. Oh, so it's my fault. Well, I maybe it's not your fault, it's just about a lack of clarity about what you needed me to do.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, okay, all right. Which leaders on go on, go on.
SPEAKER_03:I know, I I just off I'm a bit demotivated now, actually.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so you're feeling more committed now to doing a podcast, a better job with the podcast.
SPEAKER_03:Probably not, no.
SPEAKER_02:No, and so we wanted to talk today about the damage a blame culture can do and how leaders have a responsibility for trying to avoid a blame culture and create the opposite, create a non-blame culture, how it can empower your business. Yeah, so that's kind of what we wanted to talk about because we see it everywhere. And I I listened to something this morning which was interesting, and they asked a bit a big group of leaders, and they said, How many things that go wrong are someone else's responsibility? And 70% of them said, Yes, 70% of those problems were were someone else's responsibility. When they actually drilled into those specific issues that had happened, it was like two to five percent were someone else's responsibilities. The other ones were avoidable with better leadership and with enabling the people to succeed. So it's a real problem. I mean, what's your experience of blame culture?
SPEAKER_03:I don't know. Look, if we look at the world we came from and the jobs that we did, the company, the major company you and I worked in, it was really, really prevalent, right? It wasn't about the issue as much, which was crazy. It was much more about who are we gonna hold accountable for what happened. I have no problem with the word accountability, by the way, because that tells me what I own and what I'm responsible for. But if accountability word is turned into I'm gonna blame you for it because you didn't get it right, I don't get that. So my experience of it is it can be very damaging, but if we can turn it on its head and actually understand not blame but accountability, how can we use that more positively? But but unfortunately, if you use the word blame, the word blame is just negative, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02:It is, and and it's everywhere, right? In human beings, one of our natural reactions because of our reptilian brain is fight or flight. So emotionally, when we're put in a threatening position, we fight, and one of the ways we fight is through blame. Yeah, we go, hang on, that wasn't me, that was someone else. Deflect it, right? Let's deflect it, deflect it or yeah, you know, don't take it on board, and it's it's very natural to do that. And I'm crouching, I'm guilty of of doing it in um in you know, in a work environment, in a home environment, actually, to be fair, you know, at home. I've I've uh blamed other people for things that were probably my fault.
SPEAKER_03:She's probably not watching this, Neil, she's not let's hope not.
SPEAKER_02:And um, but what you know, one of the most embarrassing, I'll tell you a story. So one of the most embarrassing, and this is one of the things about blame, right? When you blame someone and you know it's your fault, it's actually a but one of the most embarrassing things happened when I was in the military and I was in the bomb disposal uh unit and we were doing an exercise clearing a building of uh IEDs of improvised explosive devices, and I was the commander in charge. The team went in um to make the safe, and because I was the bomb disposal expert, I had to go in and make the devices safe, and I did most of them, and there was one I thought I'd made safe, but I hadn't disconnected the battery, which was a key part. Anyway, I I then got picked up by the people who were observing this exercise and said, Look, you failed to do this, you would have blown your whole team up. And I went, No, no, that's not fair, you know. That was that's not a great example of how to do this, you know. You're being unfair on me, we should have done this, we should have that. And actually, the the scenario wasn't the right scenario because that would have never really happened. And I just started laying out all these blames because I've just blown up my team, and uh uh and I just felt I still remember it now. That's how embarrassed I was about it.
SPEAKER_03:But that's a really good example, right? What good came from you worrying about blaming the fact that you've blown up your mate? What good came from that?
SPEAKER_02:It was purely to make deflect the situation and for me to fight back because I thought I was being attacked, yeah. And I think that's what happens in in business in corporate when when someone starts is is back to the corner. Why did you miss your target? Why didn't you close that deal? Yeah, then it's there's all these excuses as to why it's someone else's fault. Yeah, while the pricing was too slow, or you know, um uh the contract T's and C's didn't match what I needed, or the decision maker wasn't available, or you know, I've I've I've heard all the excuses.
SPEAKER_03:I I used to run a business in IBM, and my sales leader once said, it isn't my problem, we can't make our targets. Offerings doesn't create anything for us to sell. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:So there's always uh, but you know, there are some fair process issues that need reviewing, like that one. Um, but no, in any in any organization, sales and product design always have challenges.
SPEAKER_03:I think I think the interesting thing in this topic, and and where Neil and I want to go with this, by the way, guys, is we want to end up in a place where we say, so what can you do about it? But we there are some examples it's worth us putting on the table so you can think that through. Because you've probably got some own examples from your own world, whether it's in your personal world or your business world, we've all been there, right? And we may have been there as the victim, we may have been there as the protagonist. And I think there's learning in both of those. But if you are the protagonist, you've got more control to not let this happen, right? And I also find, by the way, Neil, it's infectious that if you start creating a different world, people will come with you on that world. If you create a world which is about blame, people will come with you on that world as well.
SPEAKER_02:Well, so let's just explore that for a second, right? So let's look at the dark world of living in a blame culture, yeah. And I asked it is important to look at that. So I did a little bit of research on this, and wherever you look, the research kind of points to the same thing. So, what's the damage it does to the business? And this is why it's important as leaders to listen to this, right? It damages your business. So, what kind of damage does it do? The attrition rate of employees goes up because no one wants to live in a blame culture where whatever they do, they can't do it right, or their boss is going to blame them. Yeah, the second one was um it reduces productivity, it reduces that commitment you get from people when they want to be there and they feel empowered. Um, the third one was you get decision escalation, which means you as a boss are the only one who can make decisions because no one wants to take the risk of making a decision below you in case they get blamed. And then uh the fourth one was it it uh suppresses innovation and creativity because no one wants to take the risk of being wrong in innovating and creating or doing something that's outside of the process they've been told what to do, and that's the kind of damage. So and it's so blame at the top, because culture starts at the top, blame at the top drives blame downwards.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. I mean, I wrote down as you were talking risk taking, and then you came in with that one straight away, right? We know that taking risks has the best potential for great outcomes, but it also has the risk that it could go wrong. But I can't remember whoever said it, and that there are questions, people who question who actually said it, right? Uh somebody told me it was Nelson Mandela, but it might have been others. There is no failure, there is only success and learning. Now, I don't know who actually really said that, but the truth is if you don't take risks, you won't do that, and you're not gonna take risks if you're gonna be blamed. You're gonna sit back, take the safest course of action, which probably has the least best outcome, right? Because you're not pushing it to as far as you could push it. Personal, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Why would you stick your head above the parapet if you know it's gonna get shot off and you're gonna get blamed if it goes right? And if it goes right, of course, your boss is gonna take the credit for it. Yeah, so I think that um, yeah, who wants to live in that place where you you cannot grow if you don't expand, and to expand, you've got to make things go wrong. There's a I do know there's a uh uh Hoffman, the guy who um set up LinkedIn, I can't remember his, it'll come to me. He he put in his his manager's objectives, Reed Hoffman. He put in his manager's objectives to fail 20% of the time, and they had to prove to him that they failed 20% of the time, and if they didn't, they had to explain what they were gonna do next month to fail 20% of the time because he knew that they could he had to create a culture where it was okay to fail, otherwise, they couldn't grow.
SPEAKER_03:Imagine you're going out in the morning looking for an opportunity of failure to work on.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, now that there's a difference between failing and cocking up, yeah, you know, and damaging the business. It's it's failing because you're trying something new. Take risks, push yourself, yeah, expand the push the envelope, whatever the term is. Yeah, yeah, fantastic. I think the um Matthew Side's book, Black Box Thinking, is a really and a lot of people out there in the in the leadership world would have read it, but he talks about two great examples in there of healthcare and the aviation industry. And he's talking about it in the feedback culture, but it fits with blame as well. So in the healthcare industry, in the US specifically, when things go wrong, everybody's trying to cover their backsides, yeah, because they don't want to be sued because there's a blame culture. If it goes wrong, someone must be to blame. In fact, you see adverts saying that, don't you? Yeah, yeah. Where there's uh blame, there's a claim. Where there's a blame, there's a claim. Absolutely. So um, so when things go wrong, they don't look and go, right, what can I learn from this so that the next patient doesn't suffer from this? Everybody buttons down the hatches, hides what happened, and no one learns from it. And guess what? People die the next day of the same thing, but the same mistake. Yeah, whereas in the aviation industry, when they sit down and review a near miss or an incident, they have a process of learning where they listen to everybody the pilots, the engineers, everybody, ground crew, and they try and improve and learn from it, not blame anyone. And and guess what? You know, it's the safest form of transport.
SPEAKER_03:There's a good connection there, isn't there, between not having a blame culture and continuous improvement. There's a there's a good connection there, which I hadn't thought of, right? Um, and you said something in our preparation as well, Neil, was around fear, right? This whole thing just carries fear within it. Fear of failure, I think was one thing you said. Yeah, what was the other one that you mentioned?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I so I was talking about fear of failure, and then there's incompetence as well.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, fear of failure or incompetence. It was a let me tell you, it was an interesting conversation we had, guys, because we said as a leader, you're probably either fear of failure, um, or fear of it, or sorry, incompetence, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, incompetence of it. If you're a bully, if it's a leader, you're either scared or you're incompetent, and you're blaming other people for those two emotions that you've got.
SPEAKER_03:So, which label would you prefer to have, guys? Think about that, right? Or have none of them, or have none of them because you're not in this world, right? And change your thinking into a world where if things don't work well, learn from it, adjust, move on, right? And you will continually improve, develop, and grow yourself, your team, your business. Come on, who who doesn't want to be there? Who doesn't want to be in that world? Come on.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it it if if they're enabled to be. So if you're middle management and your management is in this blame culture, you've gotta you've almost got to be the person who's deflecting that and enabling your team to thrive below you, but you're having to deal with this blame culture and work out how you can manage that. And there are ways of of managing it. Um, because we learned how to manage it.
SPEAKER_03:But but you you and I have talked about that one here before, Neil, right? There's two other words that came in here. One of them was about the courage to step up and take that and don't transfer to your team what you're getting placed upon you. Yeah, and the other one is acting as the buffer. You need to absorb that and don't let it get through. Now, that ain't easy, right? But no one said leadership was easy.
SPEAKER_02:So there's an episode we should do on this actually, on upward management. I think um, because I spend a lot of time when I'm coaching people uh on upward management, whether it's upward management to the to a level of directors or to investors or to owners of businesses or whatever it is, yeah, there's probably a whole episode on how to do upward management.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So so I think what we've done is we've said, look, there's a problem here. The blame culture environment damages your business, damages your employees, damages your productivity. It's it's not good for anyone. Yep. So then what do you do about it? And what what would your advice be to someone if they wanted to try and change that in their business?
SPEAKER_03:The first thing I would say is the topic of what the blame is, is the thing you're trying to fix. So think about the problem that you were trying to address. Don't think about who caused the problem. And that's got to be your point of focus. So the difference is between is it an individual or is it a subject or a topic or an item? That that would be the number one for me. What is it we're trying to fix? What is it we're trying to create? What is it we're trying to do? That should be your focus.
SPEAKER_02:So look at focus on the solution, yeah, and how you might address the solution rather than how you got to the place you're at.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I don't think there's anything wrong in working out that something went wrong, so long as you're not trying to hold someone accountable for the fact it went wrong. I think in the we talked about in the prep, you were talking about Formula One, right? And someone didn't so look, the the pit didn't turn this round as fast as they should have done. We're not looking to identify who the person was, we're trying to identify what it was. So, as you said in the prep example, the gun didn't work on the wheel, right? Okay, we're not trying to find out who was responsible for that gun, but why didn't that gun work? That's what's important.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so so you've got to you've got to so they talk about it when I read about this earlier, they talk about work on the system and the process, yeah, not looking to blame individuals in the in the process, and I think that's really important. So, okay, I've got that. Um so focus on the system, the process, and how you might make that better. Um, what else would you suggest?
SPEAKER_03:If you wanted to make this positive and not negative, realize there's an opportunity for learning development and growth. Actually turn it on its head and go, rather than us having a failure, we've got a learning opportunity.
SPEAKER_02:Brilliant. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And if you exercise that learning opportunity, do you not come off smarter and better than you were before?
SPEAKER_02:So then it's create, how do you create that culture? So when something goes wrong, that you then okay, team, great, fantastic, well done to Joe. We've now got a learning opportunity here, guys. What can we do? So I guess it's how do you go from um let's blame Joe to how can we learn from the the failure in the process he's uncovered?
SPEAKER_03:Do you know? I I'm not an expert in it, right? But in agile methodologies, one of the things they teach is for you to continually ask, what could I have done better? What could I have done better? But then for you also to look at the team and say, What could we have done better as a team? Right? And again, don't come back to oh, in the team is actually Neil, Dave, and Albert. The one that screwed up was Dave. No, we're not looking at that. In the team, so I personally could have done this better. That would have given us a better outcome, but the team could have done this better. What can we do to make sure that happens next time?
SPEAKER_02:And I think there's a couple of things to remember here, and uh, there's a phrase that you used to use all the time, which I use still use now, which was no one come, wakes up in the morning and comes to work to screw up. Yeah, you know, everyone comes to work with the intention of I want to do the best I can today, yeah. With the resources I've got, the skills I've got, the capability I've got, or whatever it might be, I want to do the best I can today, in general, anyway. Um, and I think if if a if a leader has the point of view that says, if something doesn't go right, how can I create a culture of let's what we can learn from that? How can I accept the fact that this person might not have had the skills they needed, or they might not have had the knowledge or the but actually one of the things that you need to do, and we've talked about this a lot, is people have got to know what good looks like. Absolutely, they've got to know that that this is your expectation, because typically we are disappointed when our expectations aren't met, and so the boss, as a leader, if you're not helping people understand what good looks like, then guess what? You're gonna be disappointed.
SPEAKER_03:For for those of you that don't know it, guys, that's one of Neil's favorite phrases, right? Because it absolutely brings you it's it can stop meetings in their track when you ask what good look like, and people stare at each other around the room, yeah. Right, it's a really, really important methodology to think about, guys. And it's such a simple question, but it's such a powerful one.
SPEAKER_02:So I'm gonna there was a couple of examples that I looked at, and I've I've heard on uh in interviews, and I actually saw David Coulthard presented on stage at uh an event I was at. And you you so I just want to look at so the New Zealand rugby team, one of the things they do, and it was their captain at the time, but one of their he was talking about they they sit down after every match in the room and they go in in the changing room, and they each are given feedback by their peers on what they saw and what they thought they could have done better. And you know, it might be, well, you were out of position here, you know, I really needed you ahead of me, or you know, when I had uh had to tackle this guy, you know, you could have filled in behind me, you know. So they give feedback, and one of the key things about that is there's there's no opportunity to say, actually, no, you're wrong. No, you're wrong. I did do that, and uh, but I didn't do that because I was thinking this.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So you can't defend what you're hearing, you're just receiving feedback, and that's an opportunity to learn and make you better.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Uh, I don't know. Have you ever run a uh as a leader? Have you ever done that in a leadership uh capacity?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, probably more in a in a kind of root cause analysis. I mean, you and I worked on deals all the time, right? When we win the deal, there's nothing but celebration, right? When we lose the deal, what's the first thing that happens, right? Oh, yeah, no, why did you lose? But no one ever looks at the learning from that, or very rarely, yeah, yeah. So so that was really that was part of my world for many years was the blame culture that if you've lost a deal, someone's gonna get shot. Yeah, no, that is a crazy place to have been, right? So lost.
SPEAKER_02:In fact, actually, thinking about it, the best learning we ever had was when we lost a major bank in the UK, yeah. And I remember my part in that was I went and found the salesman who'd sold the deal against us, yeah. And I brought him into the company and paid him as a consultant for a day to sit down and run workshops on how he beat us to learn what we could learn from him, and we learned a hell of a lot in that process. Uh yes, we did. Yeah, so that was uh a good example. And I think the the other example, so you mentioned Formula One, right? The other example is that in Formula One, at the end of a race, whether they've won, loss, finished the race, not finished the race, they each review, they sit down, and before they travel, before they go out and party, they each review each department again, and they get feedback from every other department on what could you have done better? Yeah, yeah, so you've got to foster that culture of feedback to enable growth, which is interesting what you just said there, Neil.
SPEAKER_03:It's departments, right? So, as an entity, they're talking to a different entity, so no one's taking it that personally down to an individual, it's entities sharing with each other to say, how can we jointly? So, in a company, it's businesses and functions saying, How can we move the company forward? That's such a powerful thinking. Yeah, can you imagine creating that?
SPEAKER_02:So, what we've kind of established is blame culture is very painful, it's a horrible place to work, it's not good for the business, it's not good for the individuals. And you know, there are lots of examples of where it doesn't work and it damages even people's lives, yeah. And the way you fix that is some of the things that that Albert and I have just been talking about is you focus on the process and the system, not on the individuals, and how can you make that better? How can you grow? Yeah, um, openness and trust and communication and creating that feedback environment, um, and and make sure people know what good looks like. So you're clear on that common goal, that common vision, and where each person fits in it, yeah. Um, but yeah, I think it's it's a natural, don't worry if you do feel like blaming someone, that's a natural human reaction.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Um, the only other thing I'd add in there, Neil, is everybody take responsibility for inputting to this. Don't sit on the sideline waiting for somebody else to comment. And if you do see a blame culture, it is it does take courage. I'm not sitting there with your job, I don't have your mortgage to pay, guys. And I know that it's a challenge that if you see that, if you jump in, it could cost you. But you need to gauge that. But by the way, you could be the one that changes everything happening in the room or in that scenario because you could stop it, you could stop that rolling down the road and say, Whoa, hang on, guys, we're focused in the wrong place here.
SPEAKER_02:And I think that the the leadership of that, so for the leadership detectives, the clues in there are you've got to create the environment to enable that to happen. Yes, you've got to spot blame when it comes down to you, and you've got to spot blame when you're thinking it and feeling it, and you've got to stop blame within your teams, and you've got to create that openness, feedback, engagement, etc.
SPEAKER_03:Here's an invitation, guys. Drop into the comments where you think a blame culture is positive and why. Be glad to hear it because I can't think of it, right? But we might be missing something, Neil, because you and I are optimists, right? But we're realists as well. So if we're missing something, guys, please tell us. Um, just another comment I'd like to make while I'm here. We're on this topic because we had a recommendation from one of our listeners. So thank you guys for keeping that coming forward. James Loftus, by the way. So, James, here's your credit. We've kept it till the end. So if you didn't watch the whole thing, you wouldn't have heard us say that, right? All credit to you, James, for putting that topic forward. Because when we first looked at it, we went, What do we think is here? And we suddenly realized it's such a great topic. And by the way, it exists in all of our lives. I dare someone to say it doesn't exist in their life.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and it and it is a human emotion that we have to recognise we all have, it's just how what we do with that emotion.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and just to thank you to Neil here for doing the research, because I apologize, guys. I was a bit lazy and I didn't do any on this topic. So, Neil, thanks for for doing well.
SPEAKER_02:Hopefully, there's a learning experience in there as well. And we'll have a conversation about that later. No, it's fine. And and and and it look, it's it's great to talk about this because it is an important topic, and we want to help the leaders out there. So hopefully this will help you. And thanks for listening. Great to see you again, mate. Uh, please subscribe, guys. I keep putting my thumbs down when I say subscribe. I mean give us a thumbs up and subscribe. Um, and see you in the next episode.
SPEAKER_01:Now more than ever, it's critical that customers find accurate information about your business. LocalWorks by Yahoo Small Business makes it easy to add, edit, and publish business information across 70 plus local directories from a single dashboard. Ensure your business is found with local works and save 10% today by using code LWPODCAST. Visit Yahoo Smallbusiness.com slash local to find out more.
SPEAKER_00:News laws and regulations are changing by the day. We get it. And at ADP, we're here to help guide you with up-to-the-minute compliance expertise so you can pay your people accurately and on time, regardless of what each new day may bring. Learn more at adp.com.