The New How [Paperback]

Chapter 1. System Overload

If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to blame.

—Unknown

It’s not enough to rage against the lie. You’ve got to replace it with the truth.

—Bono

Blaming People Only Works for So Long

Watching missed business opportunities is always painful. When products fall flat or sales slow down despite best efforts, it’s excruciating to experience the loss of market value. And most of us can guess what comes next: the blame game. Someone must have made the wrong decision, failed to do the right thing, or both. “If only we’d had the right people on the bus, we would have succeeded,” is what we say. The mental betting pools begin on who will wind up getting tossed under that very same bus.

Most often, there’s some good reason for blaming people. After all, mistakes were made. “Any fool could have seen that our supplier couldn’t ramp up production that fast.” “Engineering missed their committed date. Simple as that.” Or “Listen, they’ve walked before, and they’ve chewed gum before. All they had to do was walk and chew gum at the same time!” Well, maybe. Who is at fault is not simply an objective question; it is often a political necessity. So we play “he said, she said,” pick a scapegoat for the failure, and move on. But is this useful? That is, will blaming people help any of our businesses to be successful the next time?

People aren’t the core reason why strategies fail. Of course they are part of the dynamic, but we often look to blame people as ...