Saturday, June 06, 2009
Enterprise Architecture and Blame Avoidance
Collective crimes incriminate no-one...
Innovators and engineers typically focus on the following in decreasing order of importance:
So, is blame avoidance a good thing or a bad thing? You should have this conversation within your own ecosystem and see what answer emerges...
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Are you or others you know making decisions or assigning tasks in a manner that mitigates anything being blamed on anyone? This can be encouraged by organizational practices that look for someone to blame when something goes wrong, rather than looking for things to change to prevent the error in future.
Blame avoidance reaches its peak when its employees also spend inordinate amounts of time on perception management. This causes enterprises to look good on the surface but to rot away internally. Think Enron.
Have you noticed that cultures that center on blame avoidance aren't very innovative? Blame avoiders typically focus on the following, in decreasing order of importance:
- how they appear to others
- how their department appears to others
- how their organization appears to others
Innovators and engineers typically focus on the following in decreasing order of importance:
- making things
- making things that work
- making things that are useful
So, is blame avoidance a good thing or a bad thing? You should have this conversation within your own ecosystem and see what answer emerges...
