Playing the Blame Game

The Blame Game sounds like fun, doesn’t it? The words even rhyme. We’ve all played it before and some of us are much better at it than others. There are really not that many rules to The Blame Game other than to make sure that, when something goes wrong, attention is diverted away from your desk, department, or company as quickly as possible. The more reasons you can come up for why it’s somebody else’s fault, the more points you get.

This can be done in oh so many creative ways. It could be somebody else’s fault for not following up on the information you gave them. Or, it could be somebody else’s fault that they didn’t give you the information you needed to get the job done. Or, you could always blame technology for breaking down, processes for not working the way they should have, or just plain old incompetence on the part of a vendor that should have known better.

How Much Fun Can the Blame Game Be?

As a matter of fact, there are teams that have taken blaming others to such new heights they have coined the expression ‘blamestorming session.’ We’re all familiar with the brainstorming session that involves sitting in a room and coming up with as many ideas as possible to solve a problem. There are no bad ideas and judgment is not passed on any of the ideas proffered. A blamestorming session is similar in the fact that everyone sits around the room and comes up with ideas, but the problem they are looking to solve is how to divert blame away from themselves. There are no bad ideas on how to blame others and suggestions are offered up freely. The one or two most viable ideas will then be picked and circulated in the corporate ecosystem.

What a blast!

Here’s the problem…

Blaming others for a project’s woes is only a short-termsolution to a long-term problem. It gets even more complicated if you find yourself pitted against your client. When something goes wrong on the project and it runs over budget, is delayed by a couple of weeks, or the scope didn’t come in as anticipated, the first thing everyone does is subconsciously and instinctively start to think about who else’s fault it is.

C’mon, you know you do it too.

You cycle through all of the who-knew-what-and-when-did-they-know-it scenarios. It wouldn’t have happened if this person (who knew the information) had done something about it at this time (when they got the information). You fastidiously compile a chronological list of events complete with email date and time stamps and precise versions of documentation. There’s no way they are going to pin this one on you, your department, or your company. No way, you’re not going down for this mistake!

When it comes to problems, misunderstandings, and confusion between companies…guess what? In the early stages of trying to get to the root of the problem, the blame could go either way. I’ve seen it happen way too many times. For example, when a technical issue surfaces on a project that prevents it from moving forward, you, your team, and your company immediately think it’s on the client’s side. The client immediately thinks it’s on your side.

A barrage of semi-polite, yet accusatory email ensues.

“Can you please take a look at what is going on here and let us know what you find?” the client asks. Translation? We think it’s your fault.

“We did, everything is fine on our side. You may want to double-check what is happening with the changes you made last night to the server,” your company replies. Translation? We think it’s YOUR fault.

This may go on for a day or two until things get desperate, escalations to upper management begin to occur, nerves get rattled and people really start to stress out.

Whose fault is it? The truth is that there is a 50/50 chance it could be you or them. That’s why I encourage you to take a new view of things until the problem goes away. Take the view that BOTH of your companies have the problem until it’s resolved.

Shared Responsibility

Think about the benefits of why this is a better approach:

• It CAN go Either Way – Technology is a funny thing if you’ve worked around it for any amount of time. It’s like building a house of cards. Just the slightest breeze could cause the whole thing to tumble to the ground. Someone could fat finger the wrong web server or database address and bring the entire system to its knees. A seemingly innocuous piece of software could be installed that unknowingly conflicts with a production system and everything comes to a grinding halt.These are honest and simple mistakes to make on either side of the fence. The bottom line is that the project is at a standstill or at the very least crippled for all parties until the situation is fixed. So, work on the problem in good faith TOGETHER until the problem is identified.
• You Won’t Look Like an Idiot – I’ve worked with guys that are alwaysadamant that things are not their fault. They’ll stake their job, reputation, and whatever else they have of value on the fact that there’s no way they could have caused this problem. Their vociferousness is rivaled only by the exaggerated hand gestures they use to emphasize their righteous indignation at being accused of making a mistake.You guessed it. It was their fault. They had to eat crow and retract all of the sound and fury.
• You Will Be Vindicated – Like I said a number of times, it can go either way. There’s going to be those times when it’s NOT your fault and the other guy, team, or company is the one that made the mistake. You’ll find that you will be quietly and graciously vindicated if you handled yourself professionally during this time of discovery. Everyone will know if your team is not to blame. They may not come right out and say it, but you know that they know that you know the issue was on their side…this time.The gracious part is up to you. You can choose to say “I told you so” or some variation thereof. Or, you can rise above it and understand that mistakes happen to the best of us. I recommend the latter. It’s better to rise above the issue and let it go.

Sure, The Blame Game is always fun to play and we’re all probably a bit hard wired to play it. Remember though, when it comes to getting your projects done, there are no winners in The Blame Game. Focus on solutions and breaking through obstacles and your projects will always come out on top.

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