“The search for someone to blame is always successful.” Robert Half
Early on as new parents we had our son at a routine visit with the pediatrician. We were struggling with some typical toddler behavior problems. The pediatrician offered some words of wisdom. He said don’t try to catch him doing something wrong, try to catch him doing something right. A light bulb went off and we started the crusade of trying to catch our son doing good things.
Now I can’t correlate a true cause & effect to this, but the behavior problems were short lived after that. And this is a philosophy that we still stick to. That being said we don’t let egregious behavior go unchecked, however we don’t nickel & dime our children for every perceived infraction.
What about your job?
I began to think of this concept in relation to the workplace. What if every company adopted this mentality? I think many workplaces today have adopted a “gotcha” culture. Many resources are spent trying to catch employees doing the wrong thing while employees doing really great work get overshadowed.
What if we spent as much time trying to catch employees doing the right thing as we did trying to catch them doing the wrong thing?
The Blame Game
The “Gotcha” culture starts off with good intentions. Companies really want their employees grow and feel safe. All companies are held to certain rules & regulations. This is not at all saying companies should excuse obvious violations of policies & procedures where there are clear standards.
However, there is the law of unintended consequences. Staff are getting written up for everything no matter how minor or how valid. Communications stops. The gotcha culture escalates, employees began to second guess every action because they are fearful.
The reflex becomes blame first, ask questions later, which is backwards. Leaders should move toward asking questions first, blame should never be part of the initial equation.
What’s Missing?
Direct communication is the most common thing missing in most gotcha cultures.
Why?
Typically, because the organization has created an infrastructure that makes it easy to report without the two parties involved actually communicating.
To me this is a little counter intuitive.
When I screw up (which is often) it is always helpful to hear about sooner rather than later. Preferably from the person I impacted. Gotcha cultures often have a bureaucratic process, placing several layers between the involved parties.
How to combat a Gotcha Culture.
Just like a gotcha culture does not happen overnight, reversing one does that happen quickly. In a gotcha culture most employees are already on the defensive and disengaged. In these cultures a little grace & positive reinforcement can go a long way.
Grace
Grace is complex word with several meanings. There is part of one definition that I really like,”…an extended period granted as a special favor.” I think at a bare minimum all of our employees deserve some grace when we are trying to figure out these issues.
Communication
Direct communication is a must. As a leader you owe it to your team to ensure both parties have had a chance to discuss the situation, prior to it being aired in a public forum. In my experience I would say at least 90% of situations could have been cleared up if folks just talk to each other.
Don’t Excuse Bad Behavior
The worst thing that can happen is the pendulum swings from a Gotcha Culture to a Permissive Culture where you have created the wild west. Actually part of reversing a Gotcha culture is consistent and fair enforcement of established rules and expectations.
When teams see that leaders are being fair & consistent it tends to take the momentum out of trying to find fault in everyone.
Reward Good Behavior
This is crucial. If an employee is always on the defensive, they are not going to be motivated or encouraged to grow. Why should they? If they are getting taken to task for doing the job they signed up for why would they want to do more?
This is not going to be prescriptive in telling you how to do reward employees. I understand every organization is different. Some companies may already have mechanisms in place.
We are all basically good.
Just remember that we are all basically good and I really believe that no one goes into work thinking, “How can I screw up today?”.
Unfortunately, many employees go into work thinking, “What am I going to get in trouble for today?”
This should not happen.
We need to shift the mindset.
Our teams should be thinking about how they make the company better, not who they can get into trouble.
