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 morning – 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 solve problems – instead of wasting time and energy (and relationships) on fault-finding, blame and criticism.
I stumbled across this idea years ago while working with the owner of a glassworks gallery and gift shop. Her greatest frustration was putting up with customers who come in 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?” If we did this, I said, it could free us to attack the problem instead of the person – and actually get the problem solved.
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.
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, hoping for a change in their behavior (good luck). And any problem-solving we do tends to be punitive. Have you seen signs that read, ‘You break it, you own it?’ (They might as well add the words, ‘You Idiot’).
Why do we 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 who automatically react by blaming when mistakes are made. I think of it as an odd little self-defence mechanism that doesn’t serve us well at all.
This Week’s Call to Action
The glass shop story gives us an example, and now it’s your turn. Our quest this week is nothing less than to confront and over-ride that life-long programming, and practice both taking responsibility – and attacking the problem instead of the person – when mistakes are made.
Think of a persistent problem in your world. In dealing with this issue, have you been fault-finding and blaming rather than solving? If a problem recurs, we’re either ignoring it or blaming it on someone (or on circumstances supposedly beyond our control).
Here are three key questions you may find helpful:
- Did I do anything to contribute to the problem
- Is there anything I could have done to prevent it?
- Is there anything I could do, now, to stop it recurring?
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.