Wednesday, April 22

Acknowledging faults

Everyone knows that I am not a big fan of finger-pointing.
In most cases, I will give people the benefit of a doubt.

In areas of work, I got to know an American colleague who always seem to volunteer to take up blame when things go wrong. I thought she was quite interesting, because in the corporate world, most people will be redirecting the flame back to someone else.

When I said that she is someone who take blames, do not envision her as one of those low confidence person who works with the head low. She is the direct opposite - cheerful, almost bubbly person with a "can do" attitude. A pure joy to work with.

[Chorus]
Don't you wish your colleague was nice as her
Don't you wish your colleague was a freak like her
Don't cha
Don't cha
[End]

When the focus from problem-solving goes towards finger-pointing, the "Why" and "How to" element of solving a problem diminishes and more focus goes to deciding who the "who" is. And that will normally end up confrontational, and the solution normally ends up being either avoiding, or suboptimal.

By acknowledging that it is her fault (though its not always really the case), this American colleague already sets the verdict that she is "solely responsible", and then move on to what she can do in future to reduce the chance of any similar occurence in future. With the "who" out of the way, both parties can happily work on the problems.

Often, problems at work is a result of poor planning or communication. And these are issues that can be worked on, as long as effort is focused on correcting it.

You run to the bus stop on a weekday morning, because you are late for work. The bus comes later than schedule by 15 mins, and you end up being late for work.

Don't blame the bus for being late.
Acknowledge it is your fault.

Because blaming the bus will not solve the problem.
Blaming yourself and then deciding that you should sleep and wake up 20 minutes earlier WILL likely solve (or reduce) the problem.

When you decide the blame is on someone else, there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
But when you acknowledge its your fault, then you EMPOWER yourself to solve it.


Why make war, when you can make love?

6 comments:

Grace said...

You made me laugh with this post, Shingo. :)

khengsiong said...

A lot of time, people point fingers rather than trying to solve the problem. Sigh, that's corporate world...

Unknown said...

Grace:
This post was not meant to be funny. =p

khengsiong:
Corporate world brings the worse out of people sometimes. The things that people do to bring themselves up the corporate ladder.

Kikey Loo said...

learn something from this post, especially ur American colleague's behavior. Thanks for sharing them.

p/s: V sign is my "brand". haha.. Some of my frens called "Kikey's sign" haha.. :D

spy@fic said...

a lesser person will just capitalise on your willingness to take the rap (ie your grace)& brand u as incapable. at least in the land of liliput (sp?) brains.

& then u end up feeling just pretty stupid & wanting to shoot yourself.

& it looks like i need to change my nickname.=P

The Horny Bitch said...

When I wake up 20 mins earlier, the bus drove past me. KNN.

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