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Blame culture lowers productivity and employee morale, both of which impact business performance. Learn how to eliminate blame culture and align the team toward your purpose.
Key Takeaways:
- Blame culture is when teams and employees are quick to point the finger at others when something goes wrong.
- This kind of culture creates resentment, silos, and frustration.
- One way I avoid blame culture is to have weekly meetings where everyone talks about a challenge and we work through it together.
- Other ways to eliminate blame culture:
- Emphasize purpose
- Learn from mistakes instead of punishing failures
- Be clear about objectives and responsibilities
- Hold everyone accountable
- Advantages shows you how to uncover your 3 Keys – Purpose, Values, and Story – to guide your company culture.
As humans, we naturally lean toward the negative. A 2013 study found that we have stronger mental reactions to negative experiences than to positive ones – and we remember bad experiences longer. We’re also more likely to blame other people or just bad luck when something goes wrong instead of first being able to recognize our own faults.
It’s easy to see how these telling facts lead to blame culture. Blame culture exists when employees don’t feel accountable for their actions and shift their responsibility to others. Blame culture often starts at the top when leaders or managers continually blame lower-level workers rather than accept responsibility. There’s little sense of teamwork. These leaders blame or punish people and don’t evaluate processes and systems.
Often, blame culture isn’t even recognized within an organization – but it causes many serious issues that hinder creativity, productivity, and collaboration. For instance, internal teams feel pitted against each other instead of positioned to work together toward a common goal. Employees will become increasingly bitter when they think that everything is someone else’s fault. They won’t practice accountability.
When blame culture becomes the norm, employees don’t feel as positive about their role or the company. You’ll see lower productivity and employee morale when everyone is siloed and resentful. And it’s important to realize that if you have this kind of culture in your organization, it’s indicative of a larger fundamental organizational issue. Blame culture simply does not exist in an organization with a solid, transparent foundation of values, alignment, and purpose.
The good news is: It’s possible to turn things around and foster a collaborative, open environment where people recognize everyone’s contributions and admit their mistakes. And it starts with purpose.
How I avoid blame-shifting on my team with regular meetings
Blame culture significantly impacts company culture, business performance, and the effectiveness of each department. One crucial way to get the team out of this habit is to implement new strategies that foster teamwork, transparency, and positivity.
Something I’ve done for a long time with my team is to hold weekly meetings. Every Friday, we have a standing 15-minute meeting. This provides an ongoing opportunity to discuss the company’s mission and vision and where everyone fits our purpose.
Each team member participates. They come ready to discuss what went well throughout the week – and what didn’t. We then identify how errors tie back to misalignment with company values.
These meetings are never about blame-shifting. We all work together to address issues directly, learn from each other, and stay transparent about the real problems. I always ensure these meetings end on a positive note. I share feedback and shout-outs from clients about team members who have demonstrated how they align with the company’s purpose.
In short: It’s never about pointing fingers. You must address issues, keep communication open, and improve as a team.
Other ways to eliminate blame culture and establish a positive culture
A positive work culture is essential for employees and for business success. An SHRM report found that 90% of employees who say their organizational culture is poor have some desire to quit. McKinsey data shows that organizations in the top quartile for positive culture report 60% higher shareholder earnings than companies in the median quartiles and 200% higher than bottom-quartile companies.
So how do you get teams away from the blame culture and toward a positive work culture?
1. Emphasize purpose
Clarity of purpose is a critical part of a better work culture. Every component of the business needs to trickle down from that purpose. It must guide business decisions and give team members a reason to come to work and excel at their jobs. It must radiate to customers and the rest of the world.
When people work toward the same goal and purpose, it’s less about individual errors and mistakes. Employees feel part of something bigger, and managers seek to uncover system hiccups rather than punish someone when something goes wrong. This eliminates blame culture since there is a greater sense of teamwork and collaboration. Imagine a team where everyone feels responsible and is more concerned with a positive outcome versus finding who was at fault.
You can emphasize purpose in your workplace through weekly meetings, shared mission statements, and regular feedback based on alignment with the company’s 3 Keys.
2. Learn from mistakes instead of punishing failures
Mistakes are not failures – they are opportunities to learn. Never implement a system where people are punished for everyday errors and misjudgments. Never shame anyone, as this quickly leads to more blame from the rest of the team. Any missteps must be examined, the root cause uncovered, and the lesson clear to all involved.
3. Be clear about objectives and responsibilities
It’s important to be clear about business objectives and goals, as well as employee responsibilities within those goals. Everyone needs to know the goals they were hired to work toward and how they will get there.
This means you need the right people in the right seats. The hiring and training processes must be guided by the company’s purpose, values, and mission. Each employee needs to feel that they contribute to that larger mission and understand their role in the business’s structure.
4. Hold everyone accountable
Accountability must be present to create a positive work culture that doesn’t involve blame-shifting and finger-pointing. One way to create a team where people are held accountable is to activate curiosity and avoid these ABCDEs:
- Assume: You cannot assume something you don’t know for a fact.
- Blame: You cannot blame other people for the situation.
- Complain: You cannot complain about what happened.
- Defend: You cannot defend what you’ve done – a defensive reaction is not a curious one.
- Excuse: You cannot make excuses, period.
The ABCDEs must not be the automatic reactions from team members when something goes wrong. Team collaboration and engagement improve when they are avoided.
It’s just as important to your positive, productive workforce to hold people accountable for their contributions as it is when you celebrate the wins.
Turn your blame culture problems around with Advantages.
For a more successful business, you need to be able to achieve your objectives and maintain productivity. At Advantages, we work with our clients to define their 3 Keys: Purpose, Values, and Story. These 3 Keys must be part of every meeting, decision, interaction, communication, and task you and your team take on. To lead and work with purpose means blame culture is nonexistent, and teams are aligned and clear in their objectives.
Contact Advantages today to improve your company culture.
