Blame is an emotionally sensitive issue for most people. Who wants to be blamed for something that is not their fault? It makes people feel bad, it’s an injustice to the world. On top of all that, in a client relationship, it could make your client think you’re messing up. Lose, lose, lose.
Well! Here’s another way to see it. Once the “blame game” starts, there are no winners. Merely being involved in the game makes everyone look bad, including you. Pointing fingers is ugly and makes you look like you’re avoiding responsibility, regardless of the truth of the situation. It makes you sound bitter and accusatory. It removes the focus and energy from problem-solving.
And then, even if I can convince you of this, here’s what happens too often: people internalize, “the client is always right” but they still feel the need to defend themselves. As a result, they constantly repeat qualifications such as, “Even though it’s not my fault, I will…” or “Although I didn’t know XYZ at the time, I will….” Even these little defenses continue the “blame game”, just more passive-aggressively.
There’s only one solution, there’s only one way out of the sinking ship of the blame game. Just accept it, always, all the time, no matter what. You can even turn it into a joke as I do. I often tell clients and people I work with, “I want to be blamed for everything that goes wrong, and give credit to others for everything that goes right!” The joke makes the point!
In other words, since you can’t win the blame game, just accept it, and make it fun. It may require some creativity on how to do so, depending on the circumstance, and that’s your challenge to figure out!
At a higher level, this is why client management is completely different from the legalistic way of thinking. The lawyer cares deeply about blame because that determines who wins and who loses. But in client management, the winner is determined by two things: who makes the client the happiest and who pushes the client’s ball (his agenda, his objectives) forward. Neither relates to blame in any way and, indeed, accepting blame gives off the aura of confidence.
Now, to make this clear, I want to give you an example. Let’s say you and your romantic partner have a monogamous relationship, and you learn that your partner had been, in secret, having long, romantic candle-light late-night dinners in fancy restaurants with the same beautiful person each time, regularly. You, most likely, would be quite angry, indeed!
But your partner would then, legalistically defend himself-or-herself, “I did nothing wrong! It’s just dinner! Nowhere did we ever agree that I can’t have dinner with anyone else!”
Your partner would be right, in this hypothetical universe. On paper, your partner did nothing wrong. But you would still be very angry, even if there was technically no violation.
Why? Because, in your mind and your emotions, the setup and scene implies one relationship red flag and risk too many. As a result, since you would probably still be angry when your partner starts defending himself-or-herself, “what I did was fine, I didn’t violate the rules of our relationship! I never violated our agreement!!” then you would just get angrier. More than one relationship has broken up in this precise way. Many more than one.
There is only one way your partner can save the situation and one way only. Your partner could accept the blame. Not defend the near-violations, but instead, approach about it from a forward-looking, problem-solving perspective. In other words, imagine your partner said, “I should not have done that, period. I will improve and won’t do that again. Here’s what led me to do it, and here’s what I’m going to start doing to ensure I never do it again.” If your partner said that, the technicalities of blame don’t matter. Just owning it and improving in the future is what does.
So, step back, the alternative to blaming someone is being forward-looking. Accept blame as a minor thing, as though it doesn’t matter. Because it doesn’t matter. Instead, ask yourself, “how do you solve the problem going forward?” Your client will appreciate it much more than a “even though it wasn’t my fault…” qualification.
Let me summarize this point in another way: some people want to be happy; some people want to be right; choose one. In other words, in the ideal universe that exists in your mind, you want to both be right and be happy. But unfortunately, too often, there’s a trade-off between the two, if only because being right or being happy requires enormous amounts of energy and few mortals have the energy to do both simultaneously. So, in practical terms, far too often, you have to choose between these two. And in the context of your relationship with your client or your boss: taking the blame is fundamentally about ensuring you’re the one who is in the right. But to really make your client or boss fall in love with you, you need to find that relationship and communication style in which both of you are happy.
But what about the cases when you’re right but the situation, if you were to follow these precepts, would encourage you to take the blame? Well, look at it this way: if your boss is the type of boss who focuses on blame rather than problem-solving, then are you sure that’s the sort of environment you want to be working in? Focusing on finger-pointing feels like it’s likely mutually exclusive with a forward-looking environment. And what type of environment do you want to spend your days working in? Only you can answer that question.
