Blame culture: your exec team’s finger-pointing is killing your company’s IQ.
Sometimes, C-suites default to finger pointing when initiatives fail.
This creates a cascade of dysfunction:
• Teams stop sharing critical information.
• Problem-solving capacity plummets.
• Members withhold insights to avoid becoming targets.
What shifts this dynamic, and removes blame culture?
Creating an environment where teams feel free to ask difficult questions BEFORE anyone points fingers.
Amazon’s “correction of errors” meetings demonstrate this principle.
After major incidents, they focus on system failures, not individual blame.
Google takes it further.
Their post-mortems require listing successes alongside failures.
This balance keeps teams engaged instead of defensive.
You can start dismantling blame culture at your next meeting.
Pick your most recent setback.
Ask your team 3 questions:
• What early signals did we dismiss?
• What false assumptions did we make?
• What would we do differently knowing what we know now?
Watch how quickly defensiveness transforms into insight.
Your team already has the answers.
They might just be too afraid to share them.
Change that and you might change everything.
This article was originally posted here
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