When teams find themselves performing less well than expected, they easily will be on the lookout for the problem and a person who can be declared responsible.
And usually, this person can easily be found. However, it’s a strategy that originates in the perception that one needs to find the error. It is the assumption that such an error can be the sole cause of the lack of performance. This might happen, but it is a rare case.
More often, what is happening is that everyone somehow contributes to the situation.
Some do so by preferring to use general statements that lack clarity. Others by not seeking to gain the clarity they need. Some do so by using ambiguity that enables them to be right independently from the result. Others don’t dare to step in and ask for accountability. Some do so by focusing on all the unfinished details. Others contribute by sticking to the big picture.
The list can easily be continued, there are different working styles, individual preferences and patterns of avoidance, or different understandings of roles.
It’s a team, and its members are humans who all contribute to the team in their way. It’s safe to assume that the situation a team finds itself in is co-created and dependent on its ability to respond to the context.
Searching for errors can make it difficult for the individuals in the team to be open and vulnerable to their potential contribution. That is because the search for error is most often based on a judgmental approach. In a situation in which everyone wants to have done the right thing, searching for an error immediately becomes judgmental.
That is when a neutral approach is asked for. It’s the individual’s ability to be descriptive rather than critical or judgmental of other people’s behavior.
And that’s more easily said than done.
Finding excuses and explanations, highlighting how well people do in other situations, or finding what seems to be positive aspects in someone’s behavior are all also in the realm of being judgmental. While they sound positive, they introduce the idea that other things are negative.
Being descriptive is telling what one noticed or experienced while keeping a neutral tone of voice.
Blame or other forms of accusations are the interpretation of one’s experience or of the details one noticed.
