Blame Game 101

Blame Game 101

In society today it has become fashionable, and sadly an acceptable practice, for people in all walks of life to avoid responsibility and accountability and play the “Blame Game.” Leading the way in this tragic trend are our elected leaders from the national level on down to local leadership. Unfortunately the same can be said of those in the financial, sports, and entertainment fields as well. The news is replete with stories of an unfortunate outcome from decisions made and those that made the decision placing the blame elsewhere.

President Harry S. Truman had a sign on his desk that read, 1“The Buck Stops Here” but in today’s
world the “buck” doesn’t stop anywhere. Our current President is still blaming the former President for the economy mess we are experiencing even though he has been in office over 2 years. The Democrats blame the Republicans for budget wows and the Republicans blame the Democrats. The government blames the financial sector for the housing crisis and families wanting homes blame the banks for tight financial restrictions.

Sports figures prominently display a lack of accountability and integrity. Serena Williams berating and threatening tennis judges, Barry Bonds and Roger Clements blaming others for allegedly giving to them banned substances and as well-known figures their public example of “Passing the Buck” to others can be contagious to those in society.

What about your organization? Do you have a culture of blaming others when mistakes happen? This type of culture is harmful to the health and prosperity of your entire organization. Nathanael Fast is an assistant professor of Management and Organization at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business and has said;

2 “A deep set of research shows that people who blame others for their mistakes lose status, learn less, and perform worse relative to those who own up to their mistakes. Research also shows that the same applies for organizations. Groups and organizations with a rampant culture of blame have a serious disadvantage when it comes to creativity, learning, innovation, and productive risk-taking.”

How can your organization avoid the blame game culture? Following simple steps can help to strengthen positive and productive results in your organization.

First, make certain that each person understands their role and job description and hold them accountable in their area of responsibility. Accountability should not conjure up a negative image in employee’s minds. Verbal and written praise is as important as counseling when something goes amiss. Credit should be given when credit is due for a task well done.

Second, when talking about a mistake do not attack the person and make it personal. As Nathanael Fast indicates, this will become a negative and hurt creativity and learning. A frank, open, and honest discussion on what happened and the steps that can, or should, be taken to correct the problem or mistake will assist the person in learning and growing in their roles. This is an excellent teaching opportunity which can pay dividends down the road.

Third, do not under any circumstance accept someone passing the buck. Establish a culture that is positive-oriented, keep employee’s happy rather than causing distress when mistakes happen. Productivity should be a priority rather than dwelling on the mistake. Handle it quickly but keep focused on moving forward in a positive productive manner.

Following a few basic principles and bringing back accountability, responsibility, and integrity in your organization will pay big dividends with happy employees who will take risks, be productive and creative, and be a benefit to your organization.

1 Picture from*Mitford M. Mathews, ed., A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1951), I, pages 198-199.

2 How to Stop the Blame Game, Harvard Business Review Blog Network Thursday May 13, 2010.

Advice and Humility

English author Samuel Johnson gave this sage comment, “Advice is seldom welcome. Those who need it most, like it least.” In my years of experience in sales management and marketing I have found that comment is so true of most managers on up to the President’s level and above. Most people feel they have “arrived” and know much more than those “beneath” them.

The real truth is found in the comment given to Bill Walton by legendary coach John Wooden when Bill was graduating from college. He said, “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”

Wise managers and true leaders show respect to those they lead by listening, learning, and empowering people they lead. Humility in a leader is rare but those that possess it are respected and revered by their followers.

Leadership Accountability

When a person is hired or promoted to a management position, where people are required to report directly to them, inherent in that action is accountability for those employee’s performance and productivity. This often comes as a surprise or shock to a manager when they receive their first performance review and it is less than satisfactory. A sales person is solely responsible for himself or herself and the work they perform. Once promoted to management this accountability for what others may or may not accomplish is new territory for them.

Accountability for someone else’s actions is a very difficult adjustment. It is against our natural disposition to accept responsibility for someone else. The natural tendency is to blame others for the mistake or failure. Two reasons may account for a manager attempting to pass the blame to a subordinate or other manager. First, the manager feels that others view them as less than capable in their responsibility and undermine their authority and second, the manager try’s to avoid embarrassment for a mistake or cover up. What every manager must learn and accept in their position comes from President Harry Truman’s desk where he placed a sign, which said: “The Buck Stops Here.”

Every manager who has accepted a position of responsibility for others in their charge is accountable for them. For their role, the buck stops with them. Playing the “blame game” lessens management authority, affects employee productivity and motivation, and stymies teamwork. Astute “upper” managers recognize when one of their reports is attempting to assign accountability to others and failure to accept this is worse in the eyes of those the manager reports to than the mistake itself.

Recently an operational district manager was discussing “complaints” with a valued customer. The customer was rather heated and demanding in their evaluation of the cleaning they perceived was lacking. The customer wanted results – not excuses or blame but what she heard; I didn’t price out this business, we don’t have enough people to handle the job and at this point the property manager exclaimed, that she didn’t want to hear excuses, either the company could do the business or she would go elsewhere. The district manager’s excuses were an exercise in futility with the valued customer.

In addition, the district manager made these excuses in front of the supervisor over the project and the entire conversation was repeated to others in the cleaning organization. The person responsible for pricing the account was, understandably upset, with the operational district manager, blaming them behind their back. The price was based on the original specifications given by the property management company and in an additional meeting the property management company agreed to pay more the special requirement.

Even though the customer agreed to assist in rectifying the cleaning issues, the damage to personnel in the cleaning organization was not resolved. Trust and respect was has been lost by the supervisor, the pricing person, and area managers that report to the district manager. Everyone wonders when they will be blamed for a mistake, and motivation and productivity has been affected. The operational manager’s authority has been damaged by this incident.

The Bay of Pigs invasion was a huge failure for President John F. Kennedy. To President Kennedy’s credit, he accepted full responsibility for the debacle. Speaking with newspapers, Kennedy said, “This administration intends to be candid about its errors. For as a wise man once said, ‘An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it’… the final responsibility for the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion was mine and mine alone.” There were no excuses or justifications, just full responsibility for the failure and his reward for the honesty, his popularity skyrocketed.

Mistakes, failures, and problems are a part of the business world and will always occur. “Failure, teaches Zig Ziglar, “is an event, not a person.” The mistakes you make don’t make you less of a leader, how you handle the mistakes will determine your leadership credentials and if you will continue to have followers. Contrast President Kennedy’s handling of the mistake versus the operational district manager. The lesson to be learned; leadership and accountability go hand in hand. A real leader will be wise to remember that wisdom.

He Who Serves

A noncommissioned officer was directing the repairs of a military building during the American Revolution. He was barking orders to the soldiers under his command, trying to get them to raise a heavy wooden beam.

As the men struggled in vain to lift the beam into place, a man who was passing by stopped to ask the one in charge why he wasn’t helping the men. With all the pomp of an emperor, the soldier responded, “Sir, I am a corporal!”

“You are, are you?” replied the passerby, “I was not aware of that.” Then, taking off his hat and bowing, he said, “I ask your pardon, Corporal.” Then the stranger walked over and strained with the soldiers to lift the heavy beam.

Once the job was completed, he turned and said, “Mr. Corporal, when you have another such job, and have not enough men, send for your Commander in Chief, and I will come and help you a second time.” The corporal was thunderstruck. The man’s name was General George Washington.

We all want to be honored, respected and appreciated. So badly, sometimes, that we try to demand it. The fact is, that these things cannot be demanded or even requested. True honor, respect and appreciation only come one way. When we become servants.

Leading by example is the only sure way to be successful in business and in life. Sometimes we need to “check our ego at the door” as I’m fond of saying. Only when we accomplish this task will we truly be respected and followed.

Infinite Possibilities

“The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious,” says John Sculley, American businessman, best known for his positions as President of PepsiCo and Apple Computers. At times it is difficult to see opportunities right in front of eyes. In this “information-age” our minds are bombarded from every direction with facts, figures, and opinions. Environment and past experience also “color” our perception of things that may be accomplished and block creative or “out-of-the-box” thinking. All of these factors can stymie anyone from seeing what is possible for them to achieve.

Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw summed it up thusly, “You see things as they are and ask, ‘Why’ I dream things as they never were and ask,’ Why not.” Our focus may be diverted from the endless possibilities we can accomplish when our center of attention is consistently on the past. We first must dream, and then make them come true with untiring work and perseverance.

For example, in a special address to Congress on May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy outlined four goals for the United States space program, in our “race” with the Soviet Union for space supremacy. The first goal, was a dream of something that almost seemed impossible, “…I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.” In 1961 a man on the moon and return to earth was something out of a science fiction book or movie script. It was a real dream.

July 20, 1969, the first words utter by a man on the moon, “That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind,” voiced Neil Armstrong, as lunar dust kicked up from his first footprints. The dream of a President and a Nation became a reality at very moment. Untold numbers of people worked on the project, looking for answers to the goal before they became obvious.

In sales, sales management, and marketing, infinite possibilities exist that are not presently obvious. For those willing to see or dream the impossible, then find a way to make them come true, the future, and unbelievable success, will follow. A case in point, the biggest auction site in the world, eBay, started sometime before 1994 with the first sale, a laser pointer, for $14.83 and today eBay has millions of user and tens of millions of hits. Web pages and social networking are additional illustrations of new ways to market and sale products and services.

The future can be compared to a clean blank piece of paper. Will you be the one to take your company’s sales growth to the moon or develop a marketing campaign that will be out of this world? If not you, someone will fill that blank space with new fresh innovative ideas that will do both, take sales to the moon and develop and implement marketing campaign that is out of this world. It may not be obvious, but the possibilities are infinite for YOU!

Talk is Cheap

The great steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie knew how to measure a person by simply watching them. He said, “As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say, I just watch what they do.” Although Andrew Carnegie passed away in 1919 his sage advice lives on today and is still one of the best ways to measure the character of a person.

The statement, “talk is cheap” goes hand in hand with watching what a person does. Years ago, a person’s word was their bond. If a deal was “struck” and people shook hands on the agreement it was as good as gold. No attorneys were required, no long documents; a man’s word was binding. In “those days,” a person’s integrity meant something to them. Most would rather die than lose their good name.

Unfortunately, a person’s word does not mean what it did in the past. People will say anything to get what they want regardless of the truth of their statement or the intentions and motives they possess. In most cases, it is wise to watch what a person does before listening to what they say. It is disappointing that the virtues of honesty and integrity are taking such a beating.

As a manager or leader of people, can your employee’s trust your words and do your actions support or detract from what you say? Leaders who inspire, do so with actions that show they possess intergrity and can be trusted. Are you one of these leaders?

RESPECT

The great Jackie Robinson stated, “I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me….All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.” Aretha Franklin gave us the popular 60’s anthem R.E.S.P.E.C.T. one of the all time classics in pop music because it rings a bell with all of us.

It use to be “common sense” to be respectful of others, but it has been said, “common sense isn’t common anymore.” Today there appears to be a sense of “I’m better than this person, or I know more than this person,” so they do not deserve my respect. Some feel a sense of entitlement because of their profession or station in life and receive joy in “talking down” to others. This attitude exhibits a lack of respect for themselves as well as others.

The true story is related of an elderly woman in Philadelphia that was out on a rainy day and wanted some shelter from the storm. She entered a department store, not to buy anything but seeking shelter. The store personnel ignored her and went about their business, except one young clerk.

The young man was very compassionate and respectful and he asked here if there was anything, he could do to help her. The older woman said she did not need anything but that she only came in the store to shield herself from the rain. Most sales people would have walked away at this point since they could not get sales; however, this young man showed his respect by bringing the woman a chair so she could be comfortable and wait for the rain to subside.

After the rain stopped the woman, ask for the clerk’s card as she was leaving. Some months later, the department store owner received a letter from Scotland. It was from the elderly woman that the young clerk had been so kind and respectful to that rainy day. In the letter, she asked that the young clerk be sent to Scotland to furnish her entire castle.

The elderly woman – the Mother of Andrew Carnegie, the billionaire!

It would be wise to show respect to all people, those we know, and those we meet, regardless of their color, ethnic background, age, or gender. Times change, we make progress rapidly, but some things never go out of style and showing respect is one of those values that will last forever.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson taught us, “Men are respectable only as they respect.”

Welcome

The Chief Peddler

Welcome to the Chief Peddler blog. I hope to help those who want to learn to be better leaders, sales people, or customer service professionals.There are many managers and sales persons but few leaders and even fewer professional sales peopleone reason is a lack of knowlede and training.

 In my 35 years in sales, sales management and marketing, I’ve acquired a wealth of experience to draw from and if I can help one person to achieve their goals  as a manager, sales person or marketing professional then my blog will have accomplished it’s goal.