5 Strategies for Shifting from a Blaming to an 'Owning' Culture

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to promote curiosity, experimentation, and learning – without the blame

Blaming is a natural human reflex. When things go wrong, we feel the impulse to defend ourselves from repercussions. However, playing the blame game – the urge to find a scapegoat – overshadows the need to address systemic issues.

Blaming has become pervasive in the corporate world. Finger-pointing is an easy way to deflect responsibility, even for minor mistakes. Organizations need to replace blame with inquiry to promote learning, accountability, and innovation. They need to build a blame-less culture.

Organizations can’t get rid of a blame culture without understanding the root cause. Blaming is a knee-jerk defense mechanism. Instead of admitting our faults, blaming someone else for our mistakes is always easier. 

We're hardwired to use blame to release negative feelings, especially guilt. Author Brené Brown describes this human tendency to blame others as "a way to discharge pain and discomfort." It’s a quick escape route to resolve tensions and protect our self-esteem.

Our propensity to blame can be influenced by personality traits and context. 

The Fundamental Attribution Error suggests that we often blame others due to their intrinsic characteristics while attributing our own actions to external circumstances.

Blamers tend to have difficulties with emotion regulation. Studies have found that employees who are satisfied with their jobs are more likely to be good "corporate citizens," while receiving blame for something they didn't do can lead to withdrawal from work.

A culture of blame can lead to reduced collaboration, impaired emotional well-being, and increased turnover rates. Instead of learning from mistakes, blame encourages employees to hide their errors.

Scapegoating often gains momentum when leaders evade personal accountability. By using blame to hide their inadequacies or errors, a culture of blame quickly spreads toxic behaviors across the organization.

 

 

 

 

 

What Is a Blame-Less Culture?

Blame-less doesn’t mean the absence of blame but replacing blame with inquiry. It’s about stopping finger-pointing to avoid systemic accountability.

In a blame-less or "just" culture, the spotlight shifts from individual fallibility to systemic improvement. Blame might never go away completely, but it shouldn’t be the default reaction.

The underlying belief of a blame-less culture is that mistakes are typically the result of faulty organizational cultures rather than the fault of one or more individuals. Addressing systemic issues requires tackling the root of the problem rather than finding a culprit.

A blameless culture doesn't mean a lack of accountability. On the contrary, when teams own their mistakes, they learn from them, increasing ownership and responsibility.

Receiving criticism after a poor performance may not be pleasant, but it's better than receiving no feedback at all. If someone makes a significant mistake and no one says anything, they may think something’s wrong – or even feel paranoid.

How can your team or organization transition from a blaming to an ownership culture?

Five Strategies for Building an Owning Culture

 1. Focus on the System, Not the Individual

Organizations often react to a mistake with a judgmental mindset, looking to find a culprit. However, individual errors are often just the tip of the iceberg. Shift from 'Who messed up?' to 'What in our system allowed this mistake to happen?’

Toyota's 5 Why's practice encourages digging deep to uncover the systemic issues that give rise to mistakes. Repeating “why” five times means the nature of the problem, as well as its solution, becomes clear.

The technique was initially developed by Sakichi Toyoda, who stated, "By repeating why five times, the nature of the problem as well as its solution becomes clear.

"This idea underscores that a punitive environment sees errors as symptoms, while blameless cultures consider systemic issues as opportunities for improvement.

Check out a related post:  The "5 Whys"-- Getting to the Root of a Problem Quickly

2. Make it Safe to Raise Issues

Creating an environment where employees are comfortable speaking out about issues is pivotal for robust problem-solving and innovation. Feeling secure about bringing up concerns, errors, or uncertainties will help prevent larger problems.

Volkswagen’s Diselgate resulted from an authoritarian management style that fostered a climate of fear. Many executives believe that the culture of silence resulted from pressure to solve problems quickly rather than doing a thorough analysis.

In the aftermath of the scandal, Bernd Osterloh, a VW supervisory board member, reflected: "We need a culture in which it’s possible and permissible to argue with your superior about the best way to go."

Reward people for raising issues and sharing what they learn after a mistake.

Check out a related post: The Best Leaders Make it Safe to Tell the Truth

3. Build a Culture of Compassionate Caring 

Compassionate caring refers to a sense of warmth, connection, and affection between employees. It can lead to significant increases in team collaboration and job satisfaction. This is not about office friendships but rather a more profound, emotional tethering that includes caring for others' well-being.

This could include starting the day greeting co-workers, asking about their family, or getting coffee before work begins.

Compassionate care is shown when colleagues who are together day in and day out, ask and care about each other’s work and even non-work issues,” Professor Sigal Barsade says. “They are careful of each other’s feelings. They show compassion when things don’t go well.”

Southwest Airlines places a great deal of emphasis on building a culture of 'LUV' among its employees: How staff interact with each other and customers leads to exceptional customer service.

Check out a related post: Empathy: An Essential Leadership Skill

4. Conduct Blameless Postmortems

While postmortems have become more common in many organizations, the concept of a "blame-less" postmortem is relatively revolutionary.

Companies like Etsy, Atlassian, and Google have implemented this method to discuss and learn from failure – without the blame.

In a blame-less postmortem, the emphasis is on identifying what went wrong systemically, not who messed up. Etsy’s CEO, Chad Dickerson, wanted to shift the conversation from “Who’s the CEO going to fire?” to learning from mistakes. This practice has helped Etsy employees take more risks and move faster.

As Dickerson told Business Insider, “One of the things I allowed people to do is make mistakes more freely. The best way to learn to ride a bike is to ride the bike and fall down.”

Check out a related post: Calling a Timeout and Getting Aligned is an Essential Skill for High-Performing Teams 

5. Promote Autonomy and Ownership

Accountability is important, but ownership creates a more profound impact. A culture of ownership replaces blame with questions.

Managers often expect people to become more accountable without giving them the power to make decisions. With freedom comes accountability. By distributing decision-making rights to those closest to the work, teams often benefit from increased speed and better outcomes.

Amazon has adopted the principle of Toyota’s Andon Cord, giving support agents full authority to "pull the cord" when they suspect a problem with the inventory. This has helped prevent issues from escalating – without involving managers.

Check out a related post:  Developing Accountable People By Building a Culture of Ownership

6. Criticize in Private and Praise in Public

 Handling blame privately preserves an individual's dignity and keeps morale high.

Kim Scott, author of the book Radical Candor, explains: “A good rule of thumb for feedback is praise in public, criticize in private. Public criticism tends to trigger a defensive reaction and make it much harder for a person to accept they've made a mistake and to learn from it.”

This rings true for how criticism is best managed: privately. Direct, private conversations preserve individual dignity and avoid poisoning team morale.

Managers are human and sometimes lose control of their emotions, especially when things go wrong. However, smart leaders know how to manage their anger. Instead, they ask powerful questions to turn issues into something constructive rather than blaming.

Check out a related post: 9 Tips for Building a Feedback Culture 

7. Reward Collective Accomplishments

Companies often encourage individualistic, bad behaviors – usually to achieve short-term results. For example, only a few A performers get all the praise, even though the whole team contributed to the results, creating a cutthroat environment.

Organizations get what they reward: Blame is often a defense mechanism for people to protect themselves from inequity. To shift your culture from blame to blameless, the team should be equally accountable for victories and failures.

Research shows that group-based reward systems outperform individual or mixed incentives, producing more collaborative behavior. Rewarding team accomplishments reinforces the idea that collective success is more important than individual glory. This encourages shared accountability and lessens the impulse to blame other teammates when things go wrong.

By following these strategies, organizations can shift from a blame culture to one of learning and ownership. Although this transformation is not immediate, resisting the urge to blame others is always a wise first step.

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

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