How do you respond to Blame?
My three laptops are open, one with two screens I’m in my office in Netherlands. Three zoom rooms, two phones with whats app, my email software is open and five browser windows. I remotely connected to a broadcast quality production studio in England with presenter, head of production, and engineers. Last week I was supporting a large multi day live online conference, with multiple live tracks, across different time zones
The live broadcast was being recorded in the cloud in HD quality so participants could watch the edited recordings later. In the morning of the fourth day I checked the cloud recording from the previous day and track 2 had was not there!
I watched my mind fill with thoughts of who was it, what process did not work?
I spoke to the company about the cloud recording via live chat on a Sunday morning. They found no recording when they went through the setting with me and I had missed a one, which would have made it easier to record. They noticed in the logs somebody had saved the recording on a computer locally.
I dropped an email to the head of production saying we did not have a recording.
More thoughts – self blame, other blame, the world, the climate change and the list went on.
I was just about to go out for my cycle ride before starting the last day, and I stopped. I thought let’s speak about this with head of production (a long term friend and who I work with) and see what we can do. I picked up my phone to ring him and then he rang me at the same time.
“amazing timing” I shouted down the phone.
We started to speak, the process unravelled and the recording was found. One engineer had decided to record to his local computer instead of the cloud.
I’ve found blame gets you nowhere for yourself or others
It does not give clarity
A way to move forward
or
understanding
What I found is that the ability to watch your thoughts rather than react and then communicate based on needs can resolve many situations.
As Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of NVC so wisely says people are usually saying please or thank you.
This is something I bring to the Monday team meeting of Blend Associates Ltd. as head of faculty and leadership. I asked the team this Monday, “What where you grateful for during our meeting that you would like to take with you into the week?”
These where the words.
growing, optimism, development, trust, teamwork, determination
As Michael Jackson says “Don’t blame it on the sunshine. Blame it on the boogie.” For me knowing your boogie, know yourself is key to coaching, leadership, team and life.
The question which is I don’t think I addressed is what happens when you are in culture or organization which supports blame? Suggestions or comments are welcome?
