Employing Differences, Episode 112: Who should we blame?

Karen: 0:08

Welcome to Employing Differences, the conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals.

Paul: 0:15

I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: 0:16

And I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul: 0:19

Each episode, we start with a question and we see where it takes us. This week's question is, "Who should we blame?"

Karen: 0:27

Blame is such a common thing in our culture. It's even built into our justice system and all kinds of places. It's a very normal thing and can be cathartic. But I'm going to suggest that if we're asking ourselves, "Who should we blame?" the first thing I want to ask ourselves is, "Is it useful to blame anyone?" Should we be looking for blame? And generally speaking, the answer to that is probably not. If figuring out who to blame will result in that person being fired or removed from the project – if it really is this is a problem that all came from one person's predictably bad behavior and by figuring out where that came from we can eliminate the problem, maybe it's useful. But in general, that's not what we're going to do. And if that's not one of our options, if that's not something we're seriously considering, probably knowing whose fault something was, is not only not useful, but even detrimental to what we're trying to do.

Paul: 1:37

I – because I like words – will sometimes differentiate between culpability, which is where someone has done something that is worthy of repercussions– they knew not to do it, they were negligent, there really should be some consequences, like they're fired, they're removed from the project, for whatever reason. I will sometimes use that word to distinguish from blame. Blame is usually more about our own personal feelings towards a person or group of people. It's about the finger pointing. And it's often about a denial of responsibility on our own part. It's usually a reaction to a feeling of powerlessness. We feel like we couldn't have done anything about this, therefore, we need – and powerlessness is a thing that human beings don't really like. And so usually blame is a coping mechanism for dealing with powerlessness. And so we begin by saying that it's somebody else's fault. Of course, the challenge with that is that, particularly in complex situations, there's rarely a single point of failure. There's rarely one thing that you can point to and say that this is where the fault lies. But that doesn't stop our human brains from doing it. And so it is often, as you say, a somewhat cathartic reaction to our feelings of powerlessness in a situation where things did not go as we hoped that they would.

Karen: 3:25

So I think when we start to feel powerless that is our first alarm. I'm feeling powerless. I'm a very likely now to do something that's not in my own best interest or not in the interest of the team, because we don't like it. There's another word for powerless, which is vulnerable. Also unsafe. Also threatened, out of control. These all sort of occupy the same emotional space. And so if we can say, "Okay, that's where my brain is going. What's the story I'm telling myself that has me there? And are there other stories I might choose?" So instead of saying, "It's all Paul's fault. There's nothing I could have done about it. You know, we set that meeting, and he didn't show up for it, and I don't know what his problem is." I can say, "You know, I remember now we set that meeting at a time that was gonna be tricky for him. And when he didn't show up, I could have sent him a text. I could have..." Like, these are the things I could do. That shifting from blame and powerlessness to problem identification. Okay, something went not the way we wanted. How can we move forward in a way that's productive for all of us? And, and being open to it. One of the things about blame is it says only one person can solve the problem. The only solution is for somebody to behave differently than they did last time. And the trouble is, there's probably a reason they behaved the way they behaved last time. And so if the only possible solution is for them to behave differently, your odds of success are not so good. Because those same circumstances will happen. I was talking to somebody recently who was frustrated because somebody reset a thermostat to hold the air conditioning on, and they didn't reset it back to the program before they left the room, which meant that it wasn't a good temperature later. He said, "Yeah, this, this keeps happening. You know, I've talked to them about it, but they keep doing the same thing." And I said, "Okay, but if they keep doing the same thing, asking or expecting them to change might not be the solution to your problem." Is there a way to, you know, put a sign on the door that would remind them? Or when somebody goes through the building to turn off the lights, can we make it part of their routine to check the thermostat? Or can we buy a thermostat that automatically resets? There's just lots of ways to look at it. And if you're stuck on the blame piece – that this is a problem because that person behaves badly – then you've only got one possible solution, and it's the one that's probably least likely to work.

Paul: 6:07

One of the things that's ironic about blame is that it's a reaction to powerlessness but it also gives away our power. When I blame you for something, it means that I have abdicated any responsibility for creating a different result in the future. I have now given up my power, my agency, my authority to do anything, because now it's all on you. And you are now the only one who could possibly cause there to be a different thing in the future. And so it's very strange, that the very thing we're trying to avoid is the thing we perpetuate by engaging in blaming. And I think that where that points to is – well, there's two things that I get into here. One is, I really like to differentiate between the the moral and the pragmatic. I may harbor all kinds of judgments about you as a person for what you have done. I might feel like you should have done this thing differently. I can be very judgmental about that. I can be very self righteous about that. And we absolutely can talk about how the moral dimensions of people's actions do matter. We can have those judgments, we can have that conversation. But rarely does the conversation about the moral aspect of it lead to anything useful. And so the pragmatic aspect, for me, is really about, I might hold you entirely at fault for this thing that happened, but if I want to get a different result, I can't stop there. If I want to get a different result, I have to look at things like the environment, at my own actions at other things. If I really want there to be something different next time, I can't stop with blaming. I can acknowledge that I'm holding it. I can blame you for a thing and then be able to set it aside and go, "Okay, so what influences that behavior? What are the things that are going on? Where are my actual levers for action?" Because, for me, anytime that I want to complain about something not being the way the way that I want it to be, that's kind of a cue for me to go, "Well, how do I actually want it to be? What did I want it to turn out like? And then what can I do to actually help it turn out more like that in the future?"

Karen: 8:45

Which is such a different frame. And I just want to point out how weird this thing we're saying is. When I taught third grade, it was just absolutely routine. You know, some kid came up to me and said, to their teacher, "Sally did this thing to me." And then you call Sally over and you find out what Sally's story was, and the teacher declares who's to blame. Okay, now Sally, say you're sorry. And Sally says she's sorry, and maybe has to sit in timeout, or who knows what. But we train our kids early, actually, in this stuff. And what it's bypassing is the relationship work. And I've had some really fun experiences where I got to work with kids in these kinds of situations. Where they're in conflict, and they come looking for the adult judge and jury. And instead, I was able to just encourage them to think through what is it that they're looking for? What is it that they're needing? And talk to each other – and I use the Imago dialogue as a structure for that – but really helping them hear from each other, "What did they each need?" Most of the time it's they needed to be understood, they needed to feel valued, they needed to feel heard. And once that's happened, they go off and play again. Because that's actually what they want – what they both want– is to go off and play again. And kids do that actually pretty easily. Adults not so much. We get stuck in that finger-pointing place. And, then, very often, my clients, if they're hiring me to work with conflict, what they're really hiring me for is to get their problem person to change their behavior. And I wish I had a magic wand for that.

Paul: 10:38

Well, it's interesting how it shows up in different language in different places. So one of the things that I see a lot – particularly in a lot of the online forums that I'm in around project work in software development and things like that– is that someone will ask the question, "Well, whose responsibility is it to blah, blah, blah?" And they're looking for this kind of abstracted answer of like, "Oh, yeah, the testers should do this," or "The project manager should do this." I can already sense they're wondering who they should blame when this doesn't happen. And an unhelpful response that I often give is, "Well, when you talked with them about it, what did you agree to?" And that's the relational piece. We are so wired to – or trained; in lot of ways, encultured – to not have to engage in the relational piece. Blame is one of those things that allows us to not have a relationship and to feel that it's all okay. Right. It shows up in really interesting ways, where it seems like it can be useful. Because there absolutely are things where we do want to expect from other people that they're going to do certain things, because that mutual set of expectations is one of the things that allows us to work together in groups. And I think what we need to work on is when those expectations are not met – either because they were not well communicated, because they were implicit, or just because things happen that we don't know about. We actually all agreed, we all understood, we all had these expectations, and they didn't get met. Blaming is rarely a useful response to that situation. And I think that's what we're really talking about here. When things that we didn't want to have happen did happen, how can we respond more usefully than just pointing fingers?

Karen: 12:54

So this seems like the moment to distinguish between blame and feedback. There are a number of previous episodes where we've really encouraged you to give feedback, and I can just hear an audience member saying, "But you told me to give feedback and now you're saying don't blame?" And I think the big difference is that distinction that you made about morality and judgment – if you're in that morality/judgment place, you're probably in what I would call blame. You're probably in a frame that's not useful, not productive, not likely to change anything. If you're in the space, that's more pragmatic of, "Hey Paul, I don't know if you know this, but this is the impact you had on me." And it's not laced with that blame and judgment, and it's just a sharing of information. This is a thing you did that didn't work for me. Or, "We're in this situation, and I think we might have gotten there because of this thing that you did that." Maybe you couldn't see that it was gonna do that. Or maybe if somebody asked you to. We don't know, but we're just trying to trace. That's the feedback space that we do want to do and do safely. And I think you absolutely nailed it. It's that when the feedback is laced with morality and judgment, it's not helpful.

Paul: 14:12

I'll even take a step back further there. Before I would give somebody feedback about something like that, I'd want to know what they think about the situation. Because they may not need the feedback. They may already have the information. They may know exactly what the impact of their actions were, and they may regret it and feel horrible about it. And if so, I don't need to give them feedback. So I actually, in that case, want to lead with curiosity. And create an opening, again, where I can be genuinely curious about, "I wonder what they think about this situation?" Only if I discover a discrepancy, a substantial discrepancy with how we perceive the situation, then would I go to that place of,"Okay, so actually I want to share some information with you about this," so that we can explore it together. But yeah, in those situations, I wouldn't even start with feedback. I'd start with, "What do they think?" Don't sell past the close.

Karen: 15:10

I think that totally makes sense. And I want to go one more place with this, which is, I think there are some times when – whether you call it blame, or even if it's feedback– that sort of going back over old territory isn't always useful. And I'm part of a group right now, that's in a case where just because of the sort of work they're doing, mistakes that were made by people who aren't here anymore, and in situations that the group is never going to be in again. There is no replication possible of these sort of mistakes and problems. And as they're getting caught in them and feeling powerless and being frustrated, there's beginning to be some finger pointing. And that's not doing good things, which is part of how I've gotten involved. But the point here being that there's a moment to say, "Yeah, there's some stuff we don't like, and it's lousy, and we're paying a price for it, and we don't like it. And also, that's just where we are. Because as it turns out, we can't undo it now. And no amount of talking about it is going to change it. And there's nothing to learn from that's going to carry forward into where we're going next." So those are kind of the questions like, Is there actually a thing we can learn from this? Because you know, if it's a thing that we used to do, that we'd never do anymore, anyway? Yeah, very often the thing to do is say,"Gulp, uncomfortable, yuck. We're all in this. Okay, now we're all in this, and how do we all work together to figure out what's next?" And just skip that whole identifying how it happened piece all together.

Paul: 16:57

Yeah. Because it's only useful when that actually influences what we're going to do in the present to move towards the future we want. We cannot change the past. There are times when it is useful for us to understand what happened so that it can affect our behavior now, so that we can move towards what we want. But dwelling on it and staying stuck in it doesn't help us move towards where we want to be.

Karen: 17:23

So looking at the question of blame, we're starting with ask ourselves if there's actually use for blame. And there may be use for culpability. But as soon as we're headed into the space of morality and judgment, other than its cathartic value for us privately, it's probably not actually going to help us get what we want within a group. It's very unusual that identifying "this is the person whose fault it is" results in their behavior changing. And that really what we want to do is get curious about what's our own agency in all of this? Because when we blame, we give away our agency, and we do that out of a sense of powerlessness that actually makes us more powerless. So if we can avoid that sort of circular trap, and instead get curious; possibly explore things with the other person, if that's relevant; explore things in the group; be willing to be a little bit vulnerable – I probably had a piece of this too, how do I fit into all of that? Really watch our morals and judgment piece. If we're if we're coming from a place of morality and judgment, that's a pretty strong hint that we're headed in a direction that's not going to support our relationships well. And to the extent that we are in a pragmatic space of trying to figure out how do we make this better, do that if and when that exercise will actually potentially make things better. But don't get caught up in"Everything is worth digging back through, it's always helpful to understand our history." It is sometimes helpful to understand our history, if it directs us towards better decisions going forward. And sometimes, it's time to let go and move on.

Paul: 19:09

Well, that's gonna do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: 19:13

And I'm Karen Gimnig, and this has been Employing Differences.