Why Ownership Beats Blame Every Time

Something goes wrong. A shipment is late, a customer is upset, a number gets missed. Watch the next sixty seconds and you will learn a great deal about a culture. In a lot of organizations, people point a finger, cast aspersions on somebody else and explain why it was never their job. I didn’t make the mess, so I’m certainly not cleaning it up.

Ownership beats blame for a plain reason. Blame settles who is at fault and leaves the problem where it was. Ownership asks what happens next, and somebody answers. Solving problems is the fastest way I know to create value, so a team that owns its problems creates more value than a team that spends its energy assigning them.

Blame is self-protection

Being Remarkable does not mean never making a mistake. It shows in how people respond when something goes wrong. Three questions tell you which way a culture leans:

• Do leaders become defensive, or curious?
• Do people assign blame, or take ownership?
• Does the organization protect itself, or solve the customer’s problem?

In each pair, the first response protects me and the second serves us. That is the cost of a blame culture. Everyone is busy building the case for their own innocence, and nobody is working on the customer’s problem.

The third question: do you solve problems?

This is where the rubber meets the road. The fastest way to create value, and the best way to leave a positive wake, is to find the biggest problem you can and solve it. The bigger the problem you solve, the more value you create. The more value you create, the more invaluable you become.

I call this the maxim of sustainability: to continuously create value, leverage your passion and your strengths to solve problems. In other words, when a problem shows up, get excited. That is your chance to roll up your sleeves, dive in and provide a solution. It is all a matter of perspective, and most people don’t expect to hear this, but solving problems is a lot of fun.

It doesn’t have to be your problem

I like to show audiences a film about a program called Cyber-Seniors. A group of teenagers ran into a problem that wasn’t theirs: older adults who had been left behind by the internet. One person in the film has heard of YouTube but has no clue what it means. Another has been typing www.email.com.

The teenagers figured they had some experience in this area and might be able to make people’s lives a little better. So they sat down next to them and taught them. Before long the seniors were on Facebook, getting in touch with their grandkids and competing to see whose YouTube video could get the most views. As one person in the film says, “No matter how old we are, we do need a purpose for getting up in the morning.”

Value creators don’t wait until a problem has their name on it. They look for the gap and fill it. They put themselves in the middle as the bridge, so the customer gets everything they need.

Accountability vs blame: the order matters

Ownership does not mean letting people off the hook. A Remarkable culture is a place where people believe the best in each other, want the best for each other and expect the best from each other. That is trust, care and accountability, and it always has to come in that order. If you try to have accountability before trust and care are established, all you will do is incite rebellion.

I suspect that is why so many accountability efforts feel like blame to the people on the receiving end. The expectation arrived before the relationship did. When people know you believe the best about them and want the best for them, “I expected more from you” sounds like respect. Without that, it sounds like an attack.

What ownership sounds like

You can hear the difference in the first thing someone says after a problem surfaces. Here are a few examples to put in your own words:

• Swap “Who did this?” for “What happened, and what does the customer need from us right now?”
• Go first. “Here is the part I missed, and here is what I am doing about it” gives everyone else permission to say the same.
• Ask before you conclude. The lost art of leadership is asking good questions, so be curious before you are certain.
• When a challenge appears, ask yourself one thing: what part of this problem can I own?

Remarkable organizations are not perfect. They are committed to creating value, especially when circumstances are difficult.

Solving problems is the third of the three questions I teach. It builds on the first two: do you create more value than you take? and do you leave a positive wake? The philosophy underneath all three is in Beyond Motivation: A Philosophical Foundation, and the whole model is laid out on the Remarkable page.