March 17, 2013 07:51:17
Posted By Ted Baumhauer
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Went out of this past weekend. We had to park in a very
crowded parking lot. Just as we started looking for a
parking space a car way up front was pulling out. As we got
there we noticed a couple of things about this parking
space. First, the space left open was pretty narrow and
second this was because the big pick-up truck just to
the left had pulled in, for what ever reason, a bit to the
right and was over the line. Undaunted we got our car
into the narrow space and only slightly over to the right and
not over the line. I will admit that our car was a bit
close to the car on our right but we did our best with the
space that was there.
You probably already know where this story is going. When we
came out the big whooping truck to the left was gone and so
was the car to our right. Some one in their wisdom wrote a
message on our car about our bad parking job. Of course they
didn't know the story or that we came later and did the best
we could with what was open. Despite that they felt a need
to fix the blame. Why? Why, does it seem, that we have
become fixated on fixing the blame? It must be somebodies
fault and it seemed obvious to them that it was my car.
What difference does this make? You can probably tell I am
not happy about this and you would be right. My guess is
that they were mad too, why else would they write what they
did on my car. In polite company I couldn't repeat it. This
does nothing to fix the problem and only serves to heighten
the emotion. You've seen this in other places too, like
where you work. The background, the good intentions, the
effort to do the best with what was present are not even
considered. It is so much easier to look at the situation in
the present and make a judgement based on who is there at the
time.
Fixing blame rather then fixing problems is one of the
biggest issues I see in my training and consulting. It
happens in parking lots and it happens where we work. It
rarely does anything other than heighten emotions and never
helps fix the problem. Break the cycle! Forget fixing the
blame because even if you can figure out who did it ...it
still doesn't fix the problem. There are millions who fix
the blame, and I might add a lot of them have been elected to
Congress, be someone who gets things done. Fix problems, not
blame.
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