When organizations blame individuals instead of fixing broken systems, they waste time and miss real solutions. A CEO angry about being held responsible for an employee's Wall Street Journal mistake learned the lesson when asked, "Whose name is on the door?"
Welcome to another two minute drill. We're talking about profiles and failure. And this one is number seven, search for the guilty. We're looking for the troublemakers, the folks who have caused these problems because we can't solve the problem ourselves. And all these activities only take time, but they cause side conversations and side stories which again, look like you're shifting blame to places where you really are. So this is something to be avoided, this notion of somehow someone in the organization responsible. Some years ago, I had a large client got on the Wall Street Journal the wrong way and we were talking about how foolish this was because it was caused by a minor local official of the company. And the CEO of the company, whose phone was also the founder of the company, was just railing about the fact that the Wall Street Journal was blaming what this sort of petty employee did on the whole company and on him. And I let him rant for a while and then I asked him for permission to say something because he was on a roll. I said, I just have one question for you. Whose name is on the door? Then we got to work and solve the problem for him. If you'd like a copy of the full list of 9 profiles and failure, the information appears below. See you next time. Thanks for being here, Sam.
James E. Lukaszewski and Helio Fred Garcia discuss writing Influencing Leaders together
