Project Alchemy Part Five: Put An End to the Blame Game

Project Alchemy Part Five: Put An End to the Blame Game

Reviewing your project and finding out where things went wrong is not the same as pointing the finger and blaming. Identifying issues is constructive; blaming is destructive.

Sure, it's natural to want to blame someone or something for your failure.  We blame the holidays for a weight gain, we blame our ex for their lack of understanding and empathy, we blame the market for the fact that no one bought our product.

There are several problems with this approach.  First, things are rarely that simple.  As we discovered in the last section, failure can come from a number of different sources, and usually involves several different factors.  

Choosing just one as the "problem child" means that you can ignore other factors that could have been involved in the failure. Saying that the market is to blame for your lack of ability to sell your house ignores other elements, such as your pricing, the condition of your house, and your Realtor -- any one of which has an incredible impact on the situation.

Next, blaming usually involves placing responsibility on an external person or force.  To say that our ex was the reason our marriage failed means that we take no responsibility, and therefore have no way to impact the future.  Not only is that ridiculous, it also means that nothing we do now or in the future will make things any different.  We've placed ourselves firmly in the victim's role. 

While that means we might not have to take any responsibility, it also means that we cannot have any impact on the outcome.  Since the only thing we can truly impact is our own actions, blaming others for a poor outcome means that we are giving up any possibility of things being better in the future.  What this ultimately means, is that we are giving away our power.

You might be wondering what's the difference between identifying problems and blaming is.  What it boils down to, is assigning culpability.

Perhaps you think your product launch failed because the timing was all off.  You chose to release a product the week after Christmas, and a half of your market was off-line. Knowing that the timing was off is identifying the issue; saying that "it was Joe's fault" because he chose the timing is assigning blame. 

It's not really important (for your future success) to know who's fault it was; instead it's important to know how you are going to change things to improve them next time around. It's likely that Joe already knows that he was the one who made the decision for the December launch.  Pointing that out isn't going to solve anything.  

If he already recognizes that he was the one to make the decision, you don't need to tell him that.  And if he doesn't recognize that he was the one to make the call on timing, pointing that out now isn't really going to help anything either.

The best solution is simply to commit to a different decision the next time around.

Summing this up, blaming only causes hurt feelings.  What this ultimately does, is wastes precious resources and energy.  And your energy is precious.  Your energy, is your power.  Don't give it away.  Find out where things went off track, but don't worry about where the blame may lie.

From here, let's move on to Part Six; Clarify the Critical Inflection Point.

*You can read the Introduction and first two parts of this series here.