Articles

Blame Game
by Dr. Lynne Curry

Question:
I'm ready to quit what I once thought was the best job of my life. I started here a year ago as manager and absolutely loved everything about this company and the people I was going to be working with. The staff had been seriously unhappy with their prior manager and I was seen as the guy who could turn things around. When I started, I came on like gangbusters and did everything, working 70 to 80 hours a week and quickly resolving most of the staff's prior grievances.

In December, I realized I was wearing out around the edges. I pulled back my hours to 50 to 60 hours a week so I wouldn't burn out. As I did less, I had more time to look at what my employees were doing. I started noticing that although they were all relatively happy at their jobs, they had some very poor work habits. Several were coming in late and taking long lunches. Others spent a great amount of time "getting caught up" on the details of each other's personal lives. I began to see how the former manager had gotten pushed in to acting like "Attila the Hun."

I started to comment on performance issues that needed to change and things changed dramatically. As long as I fixed everything and didn't mention the poor work habits, I was the good guy. Once I started to try and fix things, everyone started complaining, but to each other and not to me. Soon, we had a situation in which I clearly became everyone's favorite bad guy. At this point, I've lost the sense I can turn things around. We had so much potential. Should I just quit?

Answer:
You and your team still have that potential. To realize it, however, you and they need to opt out of the blame game. We live in an era in which many individuals feel "if I hurt, you're to blame." As a result, the blame game easily surfaces in workplaces under pressure.

The workplace blame game kicks into play most often when a supervisor and an employee start on a honeymoon and then, due to outside stressors pushing everyone's buttons, the honeymoon ends. According to your story, you and your team started off on a high you couldn't maintain. Then, as you moved from the super manager who fixed grievances to the mean manager who took them to task for performance problems, your staff rebelled. No wonder the honeymoon crashed, leaving you and them pointing fingers at each other.

If you want to turn this around, you need to change how you relate to your staff. You won't get the most out of them by riding them every moment any more than you could have indefinitely kept up the super manager act of rushing in and fixing things for them while they enjoyed long lunches. Instead, schedule a meeting with your employees and with them look at your current situation. In the meeting, tell them the truth, that you'd rather work things out than quit and that you see them as talented individuals. Tell them the other side as well, that the long lunches, late arrivals and personal chat time need to change. State that what you want is an organization in which everyone is dedicated to doing his or her best and ask for their help in creating that organization. Then, ask for their comments and listen to what they have to say.
After the meeting, give the situation a month before you decide to stay or quit. If your employees want a better work situation, they'll show up on time in the morning and spend more working and less chatting. If, however, they choose to stay mired in the blame game, you'll see their poor work habits and critical treatment of you continue.

In short, prior to quitting, give it one last shot. Accept every ounce of your own responsibility and also hold up the reality mirror to your employees. If they refuse to see they need to change and insist on pointing the finger at you, you may need to leave so you can have the best job of your life - elsewhere. When employees prefer blaming to fixing and have an easy target in a manager they can unify against, things may never improve.