Hello and welcome. My name is Neil Godin and I’m your host here at This Week – a free service that brings you leadership and communication tips, tricks and tutorials every Monday – along with a call to action – to put that week’s insight, idea or skill into practice.
This week we explore the idea that taking responsibility when mistakes are made sets us free. It frees us to shift from attacking the person – which solves nothing and makes things worse – to attacking the problem – which enables us to move directly into solution-making, instead of wasting time and energy (and relationships) on fault-finding, blame and criticism.
I stumbled into this idea years ago while speaking with the owner of a glassworks gallery and gift shop following one of my leadership seminars. Her greatest frustration was putting up with customers who return with an expensive item they’ve bought – telling her it’s flawed, and demanding a refund or exchange. “They show me a flaw,” she said (and I’m paraphrasing), “But I know – because I wrapped it – that the piece left my shop in perfect shape and the customer must have mishandled it. Anyway, I have no choice but to give in, though it breaks my heart. I guess I’m just stuck with it.”
Introducing… ‘The What-if Game’
When I asked what she had done to try to solve the problem, her list was short. She said she had thought about starting a no-returns policy but didn’t do so for fear it would hurt her sales.
I offered to explore possibilities with her and asked her to go along with me while we played what I call ‘The What-if Game.’ “What-if we pretended that the customer is not at fault,” I asked, “and that we are responsible for the problem because we have somehow allowed it to happen, and haven’t fixed it?” If we did this, I said, it could free us to attack the problem instead of the person – and actually get the issue resolved, while saving the relationship.
Words that changed it all: “Look, you’ve chosen a perfect piece.”
As an example, I asked, ‘What-if’ instead of just wrapping a piece the usual way, she installed a powerful light over the counter – and she held the piece up to the light and slowly rotated it, naming and admiring its qualities. ‘What-if’ she then passed it carefully into the customer’s hands and invited them to inspect it as well, saying something like, “Look, you’ve chosen a perfect piece.” Then, while wrapping, what-if she kept talking about the need for careful handling – when they place the item in their vehicle; when they unwrap and place it safely at their destination; when cleaning it, and so on. Perhaps, I added, she could enclose a sheet of ‘Loving Care’ instructions as well.
I asked if she thought this would help. “Yes,” she replied, “They could hardly say it’s our fault when they inspected it personally.” She said she had a powerful light fixture on hand, so there would be no cost to do this, and she planned to start immediately. When we met again a few months later, she said the problem was completely solved.
All she had to do was change her mind
Our glass shop owner said that going through this exercise literally changed her mind. She said it would never have occurred to her that by blaming the customer – and not looking for her own role and responsibility – she was actually causing the problem to go on and on unsolved.
When we blame the other person we’re stuck, trapped, imprisoned, hoping for a change in their behavior (good luck). And any problem-solving we attempt tends to be punitive. (Have you seen signs that read, ‘You break it, you own it?’ They might as well add the words, ‘You fool.’ And have you ever heard a boss say, “If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a hundred times?” This kind of helpless lament breeds resentment, while doing nothing to solve the actual problem.)
Why do we – at least at times – tend to ignore our own role and responsibility – and attack the person instead of the problem? I believe it has something to do with our upbringing. Most of us have been exposed to a lifetime of people in authority who automatically react by blaming and criticizing when mistakes are made. Another factor is training. Most ‘leaders’ are promoted ‘Off the shop floor’ because of their work skills and experience. Only a relative few – MBA’s, healthcare professionals, and participants in leadership training programs like those I offered and participated in). Many (most?) leaders simply mimic what their bosses have done before them.
Why this behavior change is so important for leaders
A leader’s essential role is to deliver the results demanded of us – whether we’re a CEO, a supervisor or a shop owner. To do this, we need every one of our team members to feel like working enthusiastically with us. But. When we attack the person, instead of the problem, when mistakes are made, we kill enthusiasm. Why? Because all criticism is received as an attack by the ‘guilty’ person. And when ‘attacked’ in this way, people don’t feel like working enthusiastically with us. When accused they (naturally) defend, counter-attack, and deflect – or listen in sullen silence – or simply tune out. This can lead to serious, recurring problems – mediocre work, missed deadlines, high absenteeism, high staff turnover, quality and safety issues, and more. As I will detail elsewhere in this series, massive surveys by the Gallop Organization find that more than 50% of employees who quit do so because of a poor relationship with their manager. They cite lack of respect, fault-finding, anger and blame, unfair treatment, and other destructive behavior as key factors in their decision to leave. In the worst cases, the boss is left to pick up the pieces – typically totally unaware that they are responsible for the potentially catastrophic consequences of their own (usually) unconscious behavior.
This Week’s Call to Action
The glass shop story gives us an example of what can happen when we avoid blaming and choose to take greater responsibility for solution-making. Now it’s your turn. Choose a recurring problem with a team member (or other) that you would really like to get behind you. Then, challenge yourself to practice both taking responsibility – and attacking the problem instead of the person – as you engage them in solution-making with you.
This week’s call to action comes in two parts: Part A – Establishing your responsibility and Part B – Developing and executing your plan of action.
Part A: Establish personal responsibility. Here are three key questions you may find helpful:
- Did I do (or fail to do) anything that contributed to the problem? (e.g. Were you guilty of what I call, ‘drive-by delegation’? Or?)
- Is this issue interfering with my ability to deliver the results demanded of me? (If so, who but me is responsible for solving my problem?)
- Is there anything I can do, now, to stop it recurring? (For example, could you engage the team member in solution-making with you?)
Part B: Develop and execute a plan of action
In this exercise I’m going to assume that you’re working with a team member who has made a mistake, and that unless you approach them very carefully you can expect resistance – defensiveness, deflecting, blaming others, or circumstances (supposedly) beyond their control, and so on.
Here is our quick reference guide to approaching ‘safely’ when a team member has made a mistake:
- Pre-empt defensiveness by using what I call ‘no-fault problem-solving.’
- Start by taking responsibility and apologizing for your part in allowing the problem to occur (e.g. were you guilty of ‘Drive-by delegation?’ or ‘Hit-and-run coaching?’ Or?)
- For example an effective opening might sound like this, “Pat I’m sorry I didn’t spend more time with you on this step, let’s go over the procedure again, and see if we can nail it down, okay?”
- Ask for your team member’s help in solving the problem. (It’s hard for them to be defensive when you apologize and ask for their help.)
- The idea (as always) is to attack the problem, not the person. This enables you to engage them fully in collaborative problem-solving – so they own the solution and are likely to follow through – while actually strengthening rather than weakening the relationship.
Special note: If you are concerned about accountability, focus on your own accountability first. Holding someone accountable without engaging them in solution-making virtually ensures that the problem will recur. And beware, blaming is excuse-making. (e.g. “We could have made the deadline if person X hadn’t made that same mistake – again!”). This kind of behavior may get us the sympathy vote in the short term, but typically not for long.
Special note: Stay tuned. I will revisit this theme frequently as we go through the series.
Special Note: Hey. If you still feel that it’s all the other person’s fault, you may need to trick yourself. Go ahead. Pretend they’re innocent, even if you don’t believe it.
See you next week.
Neil
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Great Advice Neil!