 "Ben Dattner")
If something goes wrong, first look at finding accountability in the system rather than trying to find individuals to blame, Ben Dattner tells Devina Joshi
In your book, The Blame Game, you say that credit and blame are at the very heart of organisational psychology or organisational politics. How does one maximise credit and minimise blame?
How one assigns credit and blame to others, and how one reacts to credit and blame from others is a key determinant of whether a person will be self-aware, open to learning, and able to continuously build his or her skills, or whether that person will be self-serving, unable to admit areas for improvement and mistrusted by his or her colleagues. Being too self serving, claiming too much personal credit for good outcomes in the workplace and denying blame for bad outcomes in the workplace can be tempting in the short term, but very dysfunctional and problematic over the long term. Conversely, admitting mistakes and taking blame can create vulnerability and risk in the short run, but can pay off over time when one is able to take an accurate look at strengths and weaknesses, and also to build trust among co-workers. Longitudinal studies conducted by the Centre for Creative Leadership show that regardless of an individual's intelligence or technical skills, if he or she mismanages credit and blame, the individual is likely to derail and fail to live up to his or her career potential.
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Are there organisations that actually credit someone for taking the blame?
In the book, I describe companies like Intuit that have 'failure parties' where they celebrate individuals or teams who tried something ambitious but did not succeed. I also describe how the leader of NASA credited an engineer for stepping forward to take blame for the failure of a critical rocket launch in the 1960s, as well as the policies and procedures that many hospitals in the US have adopted in terms of 'blame-free reporting'. High performing organisations create environments in which people come forward to admit mistakes and errors in order to prevent those errors from recurring.
How does your 'credit and blame' theory differ within teams, and between a boss and the subordinate? Does the concept need to be handled differently, based on hierarchy?
The credit and blame dynamics are complex, and are influenced by individual personalities, the interpersonal chemistry between individuals, the social dynamics within and between teams, and the organisational and national culture within which people work. Each of these different levels of analysis influences one another. Great leaders recognise that hierarchy can present problems and can prevent people from speaking up or pushing back. If subordinates fear being blamed for speaking 'truth to power' and do not speak up, there can be catastrophic consequences.
Is there anything called 'positive blame' which revolves around the lines of constructive criticism?
Blame is always negative. A better way to think about consequences for bad performance or outcomes is 'accountability'. Blame is about intentions and character judgment; accountability is more about the behaviour and the performance and less about the person or group.
What happens when a leader doesn't take personal responsibility for the company's performance, the way Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard is said to have not done?
Carly Fiorina and other CEOs such as 'Teflon Tony' Heyward of BP have had their reputations suffer because of how they handled credit and blame. Unfortunately, too many leaders of public companies demonstrate the same tendency to take responsibility only for good results and to deny blame or to blame external factors when financial results are bad. There is a study of corporate annual reports where the researchers found that CEOs are three times more likely to take credit for good performance and three times more likely to deny blame for bad results. However, companies that were more self-critical and less prone to rationalisation were found to have better performance in their share price appreciation over time.
What we think we deserve is different from what others think we deserve. How does an organisational leader address this dichotomy?
Great leaders help people adopt an attitude of continuous improvement. Great leaders also strive for fairness and balance in how they evaluate, reward and recognise employees. Therefore, a leader will help people realise that there can be perception gaps between how they see themselves and how others see them, but to focus less on that gap in the present and more on how to improve going forward. Great leaders also encourage individuals to see themselves more as members of a team or as organisational citizens, and to set aside their self-interest in order to make contributions to the common good.
People can be extra-punitive (blaming other people), impunitive (denying blame) or intra-punitive (blaming oneself excessively). Clearly, people react differently to failure. Are there different ways of making people deal with failure, depending on the category they fall under?
As described in Daniel Goleman's work on emotional intelligence, knowing oneself and others, and being able to control oneself and positively influence others are the keys to career success. Therefore, knowing one's 'type' of how one assigns credit and blame to others, as well as how one reacts to credit and blame from others, is key to self-awareness of one's leadership, team strengths and areas for development. Knowing what types one's colleagues are is crucial for understanding and successfully influencing one's supervisor's, peers, direct reports or other colleagues. We set up www.creditandblame.com/assessment.html to get readers to take a free assessment of their own credit and blame style. An extra-punitive leader will admit that failure occurred, but blame others for the failure, an impunitive leader will either deny that failure occurred or deny her role in the failure, and an intra-punitive leader will blame herself for the failure even if it wasn't her fault.
Is the manner in which people react to failure gender-neutral?
The short answer to this question is: 'no'. Women tend to be more self-blaming and men are more likely to blame others or to deny blame. In terms of the categories described above, men are more likely to be extra-punitive or impunitive, and women are more likely to be intra-punitive. Women tend to get less credit than men, claim less credit than men, expect less credit than men, and even underestimate how much credit they are receiving relative to men.
Credit worthy
- A BA in Psychology from Harvard College, Dattner obtained his MA degree and PhD in Industrial and Organisational Psychology from New York University, where he was a MacCracken Fellow. His doctoral dissertation analysed the relationship between narcissism and fairness in the workplace
- In addition to authoring The Blame Game, he has also written several columns for Harvard Business Review, HR.com, Business Week etc on handling failure, risks in executive coaching, Citigroup’s succession saga etc
- Dattner has also worked with Blink.com, William M Mercer and Republic National Bank of New York. He is on the faculty at New York University and Marist College (Masters of Public Administration Programme at the New York City Police Academy)
