The major barrier to learning together

To blame is so obviously a bad thing. As we grow up we’re taught to look inward, rather than blame others, and yet, we blame. We blame people all the time. Not just in the school yard, or at work, but in our own minds and across society as a whole in our everyday lives. Today’s ‘cancel culture’ is surely one such example, and the current parallel pandemic of self-criticism another, albeit directed inwardly at ourselves.

So why then, despite it being so obviously bad, do we resort to blame? Why is it so hard to banish blame from our behavioral repertoire?

Well, primarily because we’re inherently lazy, or expressed in a more positive light, we’ve evolved to constantly pursue efficiencies, and blame seems to be efficient. Equally, it does in fact seem to be eminently logical too, at least in the moment; we’re presented with a problem, seen as an effect, and we immediately begin to search for a cause. ‘What caused this to be?’ we ask, and even in that statement we’re already looking for a ‘thing’; the cause of the problem, and the more singular the cause, the better, because singular is simpler, complexity frightening. A person is always more singular than their actions or behaviours, or the wider system influencing them in all its infinite complexity, so it’s logical to conclude that the person, a simple embodiment of the problem, is the cause. Problem solved - next please!

So we’re excused. It’s logical, evolutionary, and efficient. It gets the job done.

Yet, it really isn’t. And it really doesn’t.

It’s true that a key force driving us to resort to blame is our need to make sense of the world. As sense-making creatures, blame proves an efficient tool. However, we’re also highly evolved for self-preservation, and blame is exceptional at protecting one particular aspect of the self - our ego. Blame helps preserve our sense of self-esteem by avoiding awareness of our own flaws or failings. By pointing the finger elsewhere, we avoid the painful process of looking inward. We’re also expressive creatures. We have emotions and we get angry (some more than others). To do so requires an object of focus in order to direct the anger, and again, blame is a beautifully targeted vehicle.

So far, I imagine it looks like I’m trying to make a case for excusing blame, and in a way, I am. Or at least, I’m admitting that it’s eminently human, and as fallible human beings, it’s unreasonable to expect us to be immune to its allure. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t endeavour to be better. As well as being self-preserving, sense-making, efficient, expressive creatures, we’re hopefully (and this is a heart-felt hope) also developmental, learning creatures; and the problem with blame is that it always limits learning.

In our bid to develop and grow, blame is a powerful barrier to overcome, so within the context of teams and organisations, I thought I’d offer some thoughts on how to minimise its impact. I firmly believe that the workplace should be a developmental space (most of us work for half our waking lives, so where else are we going to develop?) and the team itself can prove to be a powerhouse for learning, provided we can get past blame.

the team itself can prove to be a powerhouse for learning, provided we can get past blame

The first step towards keeping blame at bay is to spot it in the first place; to attune to the signs that people are resorting to it. Keep an eye out for concerns being located in a single person. Someone apologising can sometimes be a sign that they feel, or perhaps have been made to feel, blamed for something. This is a moment to encourage the team to cast its collective perspective wider. What might the broader systemic causes be? A word of caution though. In an intriguing twist, some groups can start to rally round a sense of their own perfection as a team. Now it’s the wider organisation or the industry at large that is to blame for failure. I think that rather nicely points to the other signpost to watch out for - simplicity. Life just isn’t as black and white as we might hope. With both the individual and the organisation, the locus of blame is placed firmly on a single entity, because that’s easier for us to entertain, but the truth is always going to be far more grey in nature. Better then to look at the broad array of contributing factors, and place the locus of control firmly within ourselves (personally and as a team), asking ‘what can we do to learn from and improve matters?’

In order to move away from blame in an organisation over time, we need to foster a culture of trust and psychological safety, through connectivity and vulnerability. Once again, I’m touching on subjects that risk turning this short thought piece into a rambling behemoth of an enquiry. Instead though, I’ll offer just a couple of valuable actions that promote both. Firstly, take some time to get to know your team members. In a crass way, if informal chit-chat doesn’t get you there, a structured process of asking a few key ‘getting to know each other’ questions that delve into each other's pasts should serve in some small way to drive connectivity. It’ll never be a replacement for more informal, emergent opportunities to reinforce relationships, but like ‘forced fun’, if it’s the best you can do in the moment, it’s better than nothing.

Secondly, and perhaps this does sound a bit trite, but driving team members to share both their strengths and their weaknesses, with the addition of driving discussion around acknowledging how strengths overplayed can become weaknesses, all serves to drive a sense of healthy vulnerability. Actively endeavouring to highlight our own fallibilities goes a long way to promoting a sense of psychological safety for others, so we need to be brave, exposing our vulnerability. Noone is perfect, and that’s a rather reassuring notion once you get used to it.

endeavouring to highlight our own fallibilities goes a long way to promoting a sense of psychological safety for others

Next comes a more overt rule. Whether it becomes a company value, an agreed team behaviour, or a repeat theme in team talks, we have to reframe mistakes as learning opportunities, and in so doing, drive a learning culture. It needs to be OK to make mistakes, so always seek to reframe moments of blame as learning opportunities. If it’s not OK to make mistakes, people will inevitably seek to hide them, and consequently, the learning opportunity is lost.

Now we move on to something that will make the more organised and efficient professionals wince. In order to overcome blame culture, you have to create time for curiosity, which involves encouraging people to ask questions and listen more. Curiosity takes time, which I know so many businesses believe they can’t afford. I’m not sure what to say here, except to encourage a ‘long game’ perspective. Learning from mistakes means that, over time, the team becomes more effective and efficient, so take time in the moment to agree a plan around the exact learning to be gained from a mistake. Without blaming, what specifically will the team do to avoid the mistake in the future, and how will they know that this is happening? Move the conversation from person-oriented to action-oriented; make it about the event or behaviour, not the individual. Taking time to listen and discuss events and behaviours will help to wring out all the potential value to be gained through acknowledging and learning from a mistake. Yes, you’ll go slower in the moment, but inevitably faster in the long run.

Move the conversation from person-oriented to action-oriented; make it about the event or behaviour, not the individual

Finally, it’s vital that, as a group we seek to drive personal accountability. The potential for confusion here is in the idea that to not blame is to not promote accountability, yet blame and accountability are fundamentally different and must not be confused. Blame is a statement about the past; there was an event, and there was a cause of that event. It’s done and gone. Accountability on the other hand lives both in the present and in the future. It’s about ownership and responsibility. Blame is a reproach. Accountability is about empowerment. In a bid to make it not about ourselves, we can sometimes start to point to the organisation as a whole, and perhaps at the leadership, not because of their actions, but because supposedly they’re responsible for defining the culture (and they are undeniably highly influential in this regard). However, the only constructive path forward is to accept that everyone is responsible for defining the culture, and since we can’t make other people act in a certain way, we have no choice but to focus on ourselves and to make ourselves accountable. Not through self-blame, but through a commitment to be held accountable, to own and to learn.

Groups and organizations with a rampant culture of blame are at a serious disadvantage when it comes to creativity, learning, innovation, and productive risk-taking. Not only does it restrict learning in the moment, but the consequential lack of psychological safety leads to people hiding mistakes, and so lose the opportunity to develop. To that end then, this thought piece isn’t just about teams and businesses, although it’s certainly a powerful place to start. Blame culture has a lot to answer for, at a global, societal level. Since it's fruitless to blame society at large, we’re far better off starting somewhere we know we can make a difference - ourselves. Not through self-blame, but through curiosity, agency and personal resolve. My vote is for learning, everyday - who’s with me?

If you’re hearing a lot of ‘he said, she said’ and sense a whiff of blame culture brewing, perhaps I can help. Let’s talk!