How to Avoid the Business Blame Game
When mistakes are made in business/within a corporation, how do you avoid the blame game and get to the real root of the issue.
The real test of people and of organizational culture is what happens when things go wrong, when mistakes are made, when something fails.
We all have automatic responses. Who did it? Who can we blame? Oooh, I hope they don’t think it is me.
First question to ask: what happened? This is more difficult than we think. We have long narratives that have become attached to almost everything that has happened. “…our site went down, the tech guy wasn’t available, the delivery company didn’t pick up the order, the customers put in the wrong information…”
What happened? The package did not get delivered.
What follows are steps in Root Cause Analysis (Wikipedia) – an accepted methodology for getting to the root cause of an issue.
This may seem overly complicated when you first read it. RCA transforms the blame game into discovering ‘what happened’ and how to keep it from happening again.
1.Define the problem or describe the event factually. Include the qualitative and quantitative attributes (properties) of the outcomes. This usually includes specifying the natures, the magnitudes, the locations, and the timings.
2.Gather data and evidence, classifying that along a timeline of events to the final failure or crisis. For every behavior, condition, action, and inaction specify in the “timeline” what should have been when it differs from the actual.
3.Ask “why” and identify the causes associated with each step in the sequence towards the defined problem or event. “Why” is taken to mean “What were the factors that directly resulted in the effect?”
4.Classify causes into causal factors that relate to an event in the sequence, and root causes, that if eliminated can be agreed to have interrupted that step of the sequence chain.
5.If there are multiple root causes, which is often the case, reveal those clearly for later optimum selection. Identify all other harmful factors that have equal or better claim to be called “root causes.”
6.Identify corrective action(s) that will with certainty prevent recurrence of each harmful effect, including outcomes and factors. Check that each corrective action would, if pre-implemented before the event, have reduced or prevented specific harmful effects.
7.Identify solutions that, when effective, prevent recurrence with reasonable certainty with consensus agreement of the group, are within your control, meet your goals and objectives and do not cause or introduce other new, unforeseen problems.
8.Implement the recommended root cause correction(s).
9.Ensure effectiveness by observing the implemented recommendation solutions.
Oh, and it’s fine to have fun doing this!
Written by: Bix Bickson, Director of Mojofication