Motivational Management: Inspiring Your People for Maximum Performance

4. Blaming vs. Understanding

This kind of negative talk is about the ''blame game'' in organizations. Whenever you hear people judging or blaming themselves or others, you know you need to transform their negative statements into positive ones in a hurry. You can do so by encouraging them to seek a broader understanding of root causes.

There is a catchphrase from the total quality movement that expresses this strategy: ''Blame the process, not the person.'' The idea is that while someone may have done something ''wrong'' or ''bad'' or made a mistake, if you want to truly learn from that experience you will ask why this could have happened, not who is to blame. When you seek the whys instead of the whos, you identify causes that you can modify ...