The Blame Game

I'm really enjoying the reflections on this blog by Patrick Goh. The usual theme is reflecting on organisational life in a Christian perspective. I really found myself resonating with this post
The Blame Game | gohbyname Go by nature. 'Resonating' because I have observed this in several workplaces or organisations I've been acquainted with:

In a blame culture, people behave in blaming ways. These behaviours are self-sustaining and self-perpetuating. It breeds a suspicion, politicking, backbiting, draconian organisational practice and non-risk taking. In these cultures, feedback such as “you should do better next time”, and even training and development events are seen as threats.

And, perhaps, what he goes on to say, therefore, is part of my mission in the job I began officially yesterday. Patrick says,

We can change our social world by changing our organising grammar to:

• Let’s discuss a helpful process for creating change.
• How can we inquire into and build on the best of what is?
• What can we help people to learn?
• How can we value everyone’s contribution?
• Who else, amongst us, do we need to involve?
• What processes do we need to put in place to help us improve continuously?
• How can we develop, coach and mentor people through a project

I love that 'organising grammar' phrase! He goes on to point out that it is an attitudinal shift, and he's right. I'd say the secret is to contrast a culture where a central tenet is blame (and it's even more unlovely concommitants, scapegoating and unjust assumptions) with a culture where the central tenet 'rightwising' -ie problem-solving; how to put it right and save the post-mortems for relaxed appraisal in an open and inclusive learning environment marked by positive regard for all.

You see, in my experience, workplace cultures where blame is to the fore are workplace cultures where people don't feel respected, feel victimised and scapegoated -often because the blame-drive doesn't really care about truth and justice, just sounding off and covering its own backside -it's easier to blame someone, move on and avoid facing ones own part in the systemic failure. A blame-reflex fails to encourage genuine collaboration and, ironically, creates the conditions for further 'blameworthy' in/actions by increasingly 'jobsworth' workers. All too often, in fact, when something goes wrong, the reasons are complex and both systemic and individualistic. Blame usually oversimplifies to the point of injustice and therefore foments discontent.

Patrick ends by asking a Christian question: "“How might we create a ’forgiveness’ rather than a ‘blame’ culture”?"
I think I'd like to suggest that we need to start a step back from 'forgiveness' since starting there seems to presuppose we know who is to blame for what right at the start. And we normally just don't. So what is needed is a fundamental orientation to fixing problems that arise and creating an atmosphere where honest, respectful and supportive communication can take place. That can support finding out what really happened and encourage people to take appropriate responsibility and offer support to each other.
This means unwinding our own 'blame reflexes' and remembering that we fallible too. A healthy dose of recalling that for every speck we can find in someone else's eye, there's probably a log in our own.

Ah, but the danger is that people don't take responsibility. Actually that's paradoxically not the case. By creating a constructive culture we enable adult responsibility taking. A blame culture encourages parent-child transactions, self-justification and hiding problems.