Blame, Failure, and The No Asshole Rule

As I emphasize on my list to left of 15 Things That I Believe, one of the best diagnostic to assess whether an organization is effective or innovative is "What Happens When Someone Makes a Mistake?" I made that this argument one way or another in every book I have every written and perhaps 50% of the speeches I have made in the past decade.  As I say in the above link (which is a story about Amazon, an organization that continually impresses me with its learning culture):

"Failure will never be eliminated, and so the best we can hope for from human beings and organizations is that they learn from their mistakes, that rather than making the same mistakes over and over again, they make new and different mistakes.

The upshot for Jeff Pfeffer and me is that, perhaps the single best diagnostic to see if an organization is innovating, learning, and capable of turning knowledge into action is “What happens when they make a mistake?” Stealing some ideas from research on medical errors, leaders and teams can “forgive and forget,” which may be temporarily comforting, but condemns people and systems to make the same mistakes over and over again – in the case of hospitals, this means you bury the dead (or close the incision) and don’t talk about it.  Or you can remember who made mistakes, chase them down, humiliate them, and thus create climate of fear. In such situations, the game becomes avoiding the finger of blame rather than surfacing, understanding, and fixing mistakes (see Harvard’s Amy Edmondson’s wonderful research on drug treatment errors for evidence on this point).  Or you can Forgive and Remember, which is not only the title of a great book by Charles Bosk, it is the philosophy that the best teams and organizations use. You forgive because it is impossible to run an organization without making mistakes, and pointing fingers and holding grudges creates a climate of fear. You remember – and talk about the mistakes openly –so people and the system can learn. And you remember so that, even though you have tried to retrain people and teach them, if some people keep making the same mistakes over and over again, then, well, they need to be moved to another kind of job."

The connection to The No Asshole Rule, however, was made clear in a most thoughtful blog post from Peter Seebach in response to the book.  I was especially taken by this paragraph about his workplace:

I don’t think we explicitly have a “no-asshole” rule; if we do, I’ve not been told of it. We do, however, have a corporate culture which undermines the things that are essential for bullying. There’s a total lack of interest in blame, so far as I can tell. People certainly can, and do, try to figure out how something went wrong — but not for the purpose of assigning blame, just for the purpose of fixing it. No one expects that people won’t make mistakes, or yells at them for making mistakes. As a result, people are more comfortable than they might otherwise be coming forward with information about problems which were caused by their mistakes. Net result: Less time trying to shift blame, less time before the problem is fixed.

Now that sounds like a functional workplace.. a nearly perfect example of how "forgive and remember" ought to work. And the link to rule is splendid. 

Comments

[FortuneGroup]

Hi Bob,

Some great insights. As we said in a recent post on our blog (http://bit.ly/9k2mK8), it's the businesses that embrace failure (while learning from them!) that are most successful.

Cheers,
Andy

[jik]

On this subject, take a look at a complaint letter I recently sent to a local hospital because of problems my wife encountered with her treatment there:

http://blog.kamens.brookline.ma.us/~jik/wordpress/semc1

Followed by my *second* complaint letter, which I sent because their response to my first complaint was so incredibly appalling:

http://blog.kamens.brookline.ma.us/~jik/wordpress/semc2

In a nutshell, they evaded, lied, and falsely blamed others while refusing to accept any responsibility whatsoever for errors which were clearly and indisputably their fault.

[davidburkus]

Great example. Forgive and Remember. I like it.

[Greg]

In a memoir I read, a soldier told of how the Colonel would gather the troops for a few beers every Friday and award a bobby prize for the biggest screw-up of the week (the prize was passed each week). The result was mistakes were presented and discussed, but in a nonthreatening way.

[Joe_marchese]

The best lesson I ever received was from our 5th grade basketbal coach. I asked him how he could stay so calm on the bench when every other coach I observed was given to yelling, jumping, flailing,... during games. He repsonded that no one makes a mistake on purpose (otherwise it would be sabotage where a different response is in order) and that everyone wants to do a good job. So accept it, use it to learn, and get back into the game.

I remember that conversation vividly and have tried to put that lesson into practice every day since.

[JonathanF]

I think that this came from Peter Drucker, but I can't remember for sure. In any case, it was good enough that I decided to write it down so that I can pull it out (and have so repeatedly since I wrote it down 2 months ago):

After a mistake happens, concentrate on the only two things that really matter:
- agreeing what action to take to alleviate the effects of the mistake

- agreeing what action to take to prevent the mistake happening again.

[Carol Murchie]

I think Samuel Beckett hit it right on the money with his line:
"No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." Once you accept that trying anything implies a risk of failure, you can accept that you are able to benefit from each missed attempt.

[David Reuter]

I could not agree more. Making mistakes is part of the learning process. An organization that cannot accept that concept has zero chance of being a great place to work. In addition, I believe it is a supervisor's responsibility to use failure as a teaching/learning opportunity. Furthermore, if the same people keep making the same mistakes it is very likely that there is a problem within the system that needs to be fixed.

[Nicole]

Great points. I have been in work environments that have instilled a fear in the employees who worked there just by watching individuals lose their jobs due to a single mistake. To me, I viewed their actions as careless and based on emotion instead of professionalism. I have also seen a decline in respect for them among the other employees from their actions. The only lesson we learn walking away from these situations, at least in my case, has been not to make the same mistake as the other individual, or any mistake, in order to keep our job.