The final mis-blink or mistaken assumption we can easily fall into during these times of change is called blaming or scapegoating.
When a situation turns out differently from the way we expected and we blame someone for something they had only partial control over then we are mixing up the person, the event, and our feelings about the event: we are ‘scapegoating’ the individual.
Human beings have used blaming and scapegoating for thousands of years. But although it makes us feel better, it isn’t fair, it’s not appropriate, and it doesn’t improve the situation.
This complex mis-blink often contains a mix of all the others:
- A value judgment (of the person)
- A strong attachment (to the outcome that didn’t happen)
- Extreme thinking (that not getting the outcome we wanted is somehow “the end of the world”)
- An expectation (that things should have turned out differently from the way they did) or an assumption (that they were going to)
- Mistaking our feelings for truth (imagining that because we are feeling so bad “it must be their fault”), and
- Dependency (ignoring the actions that we didn’t take, to prevent whatever happened from happening)
All of this makes blaming and scapegoating a very convenient way for us to avoid taking responsibility: for our own feelings, for the actions we didn’t take that might have improved the situation, and for the actions we did take that made the situation worse.
Because this is so easy, many politicians and broadcasters love blame: it’s exciting, it’s emotionally engaging, it gets them off the hook, and it boosts their ratings. But it’s essentially bullying, it doesn’t improve the situation, and in fact it explicitly distracts us from looking for ways to get the results we want.
If we want to improve the situation or prevent it from happening again, we have to get beyond blame. And there are two ways we can do this. First we can learn to manage our own emotional responses to situations: to centre and ground and make clear sense of what has happened. And second, we can get clear on the only three things that really matter: what we wanted to happen instead, how we will move forward now to fix the current situation, and what we (individually and collectively) will do differently next time to create the results we most want.
When we approach situations this way — building what we want instead of attacking what we don’t want — then we have found yet another way to use change to become stronger and more valuable, antifragile.
When did you last hear someone ask, “Who is to blame?” Would it be useful to shift that question to “What could we all have done differently?” and “What are we going to do now?” and “What will we do next time, to create the results we most want?”
Adapted from Inner Leadership: a framework and tools for building inspiration in times of change.
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