Are you focused on the right problem?

“Leaders inspire accountability through their ability to accept responsibility before they place the blame.”

Courtney Lynch

“I should have handled this differently than I did, and I own that. Now, what are we going to do differently next time to ensure a different outcome? I will be holding you accountable for meeting our mutually agreed upon expectations. Are you willing and able to own those results?”

That’s certainly a lot better than “what the heck were you thinking,” or any other variety of blameshifting…

Are you quietly fixing failure?

“Failure is your responsibility. Share the credit, take the blame, and quietly find out and fix things that went wrong.”

Colin Powell

Failure isn’t something that happens to you; it happens for you. If you blame others, you push the responsibility away from yourself and take away your opportunity to learn, grow, and lead.  

I am sure that we have all known bombastic people who yell and scream when things don’t go their way. But, unfortunately, they generally aren’t people who can “quietly find out and fix things that went wrong.” Perhaps they never had a positive example of effective leadership; maybe the only thing they know how to do is assign blame and point fingers. Sometimes these types are even quite effective at producing results, at least temporarily. However, I would argue that if one spends their time pointing fingers, sooner or later, they will find themselves with no one to point at except themselves. 

Where have you failed, and what are you going to fix today quietly?

Relentless growth…

“Goals live on the other side of obstacles and challenges. Be relentless in pursuit of those goals, especially in the face of obstacles. Along the way, make no excuses and place no blame.”

Ray Bourque

I see relentless growth as having to keys for success. First, if one can set the right goals, then those goals will inspire the effort required to bring them to fruition. Second, living life in an authentic manner without judgement, excuses or blame enables you to learn from failure and achieve those more difficult and inspiring goals. Becoming the person we were meant to be requires both.

A goal that is chosen because it is likely to be free of obstacles or challenges isn’t truly a goal. It is a choice for the easy path, to go along through life simply existing. Goals need to be hard enough, to be inspiring enough, to be powerful enough to stir your soul and make any obstacle or challenge that happens to come up worth the effort to persevere. If you have goals like that, then being relentless is simply a result of the power of a well-crafted goal.

And when you fail, and we all will inevitably fail, be candid and honest with yourself about that failure. Don’t condemn yourself, or others, and don’t justify the failure. Simply look at it through the lens of learning and growth so that the next goal has an even higher likelihood of success.

Success over the long-term requires both of these traits, and they are synergistic. Do your goals measure up? Are you learning from failure? If not, dig deeper…

What is useful?

“Don’t find fault. Find a remedy.”

Henry Ford

There is a Japanese management philosophy that I have always loved that goes like this: “It is a waste of energy fixing the fault on someone, instead spend the energy fixing the problem.”

This can be hard to do of course, finding a reason to blame someone or something else for a problem seems to be a part of natural human nature. However it doesn’t help solve whatever challenge has presented itself. The advice I wrote about yesterday regarding anger applies equally in the context of affixing blame. “Is it useful?”

When tempted to point fingers or assign blame ask yourself that same question, “is it useful?” My bet is the answer will be no. Focus on the solution. That is guaranteed to be useful…

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dusty

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