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Thursday, July 18, 2024

BlameThrowers

All of us who work in organizations deal with Blame Throwers. 

Blame Throwers are masterful at distancing themselves from responsibility for and ownership of impactful and needed work. They regularly manage, beyond that distancing, to either overtly or covertly turn blame for things that go wrong toward others.

The best leaders I know mitigate BlameThrowing by use of some helpful techniques:

  • They clearly and in writing codify who is responsible for what in the organization.
  • They meet regularly with Team members, both individually and in groups, to tease out pain points and bottlenecks in organizational work. EVERYONE is offered opportunity to suggest solutions and ideas for improvement, with commensurate responsibility for implementing adopted solutions.
  • They discuss all organizational business in the context of the espoused outcomes. Another way of saying they keep conversations "business" and refuse to let it be "personal."
  • They quickly, and with dignity, move non-producers off the Team (the producers are very rarely also BlameThrowers).
Transparency is key in keeping the BlameThrowers at bay. They sorta like cockroaches running from light in that respect.

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