The mower won’t mow. The dog won’t listen. The computer won’t program. 

This isn’t the beginning of a sad country song. Rather, it’s the pit we fall in which we place blame on something outside of ourselves. Call it the blame game. Refer to it as a lack of accountability. Tunnel vision causes people to be so hyper focused on a possible inherent malfunction, instead of what actions (or lack of) we have taken to correct the issue. 

“Maybe it’s user error”

I say this at least daily. Sometimes to the team, often to my children, hourly to my significant other. Never to our customers. 

Yesterday my kids were out chipmunk hunting. Unless your garden has ever been consistently ridden with rodents you would not understand the joy in watching the boys scour the yard BB guns in toe. As I sit on the deck listening to the boys tracking their prey (they are not super quiet), there is the occasional, “pop, pop”,  “ping, ping”. But there is never squeals of joy as if they succeeded in their mission. 

They return to the house, faces displaying the depiction of defeat. 

“Stupid sight was off.”, “You kept getting in my way.”, “Chipmunks have the rocks to hide in, no fair.”

It wasn’t the sight and it wasn’t the companion. The vermin are expected to hide. Maybe it’s user error, maybe it’s natural ability. Maybe they just aren’t hunters. Most likely they simply need to do something different. 

The first step of getting someone to do something right is to make them see that they are doing something wrong. How do we open the eyes of our team members, employees, and even (whelp) customers to see that the truth they seek is buried under a blanket of blame? 

Finding the Root Cause: Just because the transmission was the last thing replaced, doesn’t mean the transmission is the reason the vehicle dies at a stop. Dig below the surface, find the why, and examine other possible causes of failure. 

Accept Solutions Not Excuses: Excuses are like…. Well you know. It’s easier, and much more comfortable, to find fault in a tool or system than to acknowledge there is a better way of doing the job. When approached with a problem expect answers rather than complaints. If it truly is the tool then get a new one. 

Provide Opportunities to Learn: Smarter employees and smarter customers make better employees and better customers. Provide accessible materials that explain the correct processes and procedures. Hold training sessions to ensure everyone’s line of sight is accurate. You want to hit your mark as often as possible. Don’t stop with internal training, give your customers access to industry specific information that will allow them to understand how your products or services are supposed to work and what external factors can have an impact. 

Admitting defeat isn’t easy. Finding better ways of completing a task is imperative to success. The best employees want to learn, want to train, want to be taught new things and embrace the systems that they have at their disposal to make their job easier.

My rodent hunters are officially fired. I’ve resorted to posting a “NO chipmunks allowed sign” from the garden post. Hopefully if they are smart enough to hide, they are smart enough to read. 

Disclaimer #1: No animals were harmed in the creation of this article. 

Disclaimer #2: I’m not really a nag and I only tell my significant other he’s doing something wrong when he is.