Today’s advice is one that is theoretically easy to understand, but emotionally hard to implement: always take the blame and don’t use the word “but’” when you do so.
Here’s the thing: no one wants to work with someone who passes the buck around. In fact, we could even argue that the core difference between the low-level employee and the high-level employee is the willingness to take the blame.
Why? You can only be blamed if you were responsible. If you won’t be blamed, that means someone else actually has the REAL responsibility. And if you’re not responsible for making stuff happen, then why are you even around?
Think about it in terms of the people you hire and, in true Kantian form, let’s take an exaggerated approach to compare two scenarios. You hire two architects. In one scenario, the house he’s building for you is delayed one month, two months, three months, four months. In each of the four months, someone else messed up, “Oh no, it wasn’t me, the construction workers were especially slow these last weeks” and “Oh no, it wasn’t me, it took longer to source the materials than I expected.”
Now compare that with the second architect, “Yeah, I know we’re delayed this month. I’m sorry. I tried my best. The workers were going really slow and every method I tried to speed them up didn’t work. This isn’t my area of expertise, I’m better at designing buildings than managing workers. Let’s talk about strategies on how to minimize that from happening next month?”
We know which one you’d rather hire. And the reason is, in accepting blame, you act like an owner, you show responsibility and that is ultimately MUCH more important in deciding whom to hire than if someone is wrong or not.
Now, the addendum to that rule “don’t add in a ‘but’” is important as well. Here’s the problem, the word “but” negates any taking blame or responsibility. So, with the previous sentence, it overall has the effect of saying the opposite of what you intend.
“Okay technically you could place the blame on me if you need to blame someone BUT it really was due to person X and person Y and person Z doing [something bad] together.”
Even if you’d word it more carefully than that, the word “but” reveals the fact, as subtle as you may think it is, that you’re not REALLY taking responsibility.
I’d even advocate experimenting with removing the word “but” from your vocabulary entirely. Just replacing it with “and” goes a long way. View it as an experiment: go 60 days without saying “but” and see how you feel. A/B test your life!
