In the Star Wars trilogy, both Han Solo and Lando say the same thing when their ship fails
to work at a critical moment.
They both say, "It's not my fault!"
And in each case, this indicates to us, the audience, that neither man has yet become
the hero that he needs to be.
Neither man is in control of the situation.
Han Solo is still more of a scoundrel than a hero at this point.
In this video, I will talk about a related bad habit that I think you should try to break before
entering the workforce.
I'll talk about why it's bad, about how it will hurt you in the workplace, and I'll give
you a good habit that you can try to develop instead.
Now, the bad habit that I'm talking about is blame shifting.
It's the habit of saying "it's not my fault" immediately whenever a crisis or trouble comes.
It is a natural enough reaction that we all develop in childhood.
If you think about this, when you are a child and you're playing with a group of kids and
something goes wrong, someone gets hurt, then the adults show up.
And they're angry or they're upset.
It's natural that the first thing you should want to do as a young child is to make sure
that none of this negative emotion falls upon you.
And if there's punishment to be given out, that it go to the person who deserves it,
and not to you.
So you may say, "it's his fault, it's her fault," or maybe it's nobody's fault, it's
just a thing that happened.
But you focus immediately upon fault and upon the consequences for you when you're a young child.
This is also an immature reaction though.
I call it immature because it focuses upon your personal outcome in the resolution of
the situation, rather than upon the objective demands of the situation, the problem that
needs solving and the terms of the solution.
In the workplace, this kind of habitual speech will be interpreted as whining, and supervisors
and bosses are not going to be favorably inclined to it.
If you're tempted to shift blame in a trouble situation, my advice is to first, stop before
you say anything.
And then mentally recast yourself as a problem solver in this situation.
Ask yourself, what needs to be done in order to salvage this situation or improve it, to
bring about the best possible outcome that may still be achievable.
Even if I can't ahieve it myself, I might then know who to go to to try to get the resources
necessary to help to solve the current situation.
I think this sort of attitude, replacing the 'it's not my fault' attitude, will be noticed
and rewarded in all but the most disfunctional workplaces.
What you would like to avoid having happen is for your supervisor to tag you as a complainer
or someone who is not intersted in solving problems but only interested in the personal
consequences for him or herself.
And it would be very helpful to you, I think, for your career advancement, to become known
generally as a person who can be relied upon to shift into problem solving mode very quickly
when trouble comes.
Bosses and supervisors I think in general are looking for problem solvers and not blame
shifters on their teams.
A man I used to work with often said, "It may not be your fault but it is your problem."
And the men he said this to may have complained about it at the time, but many of them years
later remember this very fondly.
This became a sort of motto for life for them.
It's a good phrase for you to remember, and I think it helps to direct your attention
away from 'how can I avoid suffering any personal negative consequences or being the object
of anybody's scorn or blame' to the question of 'what are the objective demands of the
situation right now, what needs to be done in order to get the current situation healed
and back up and running the way that it should.'
So I think becoming a problem solver, putting your personal and subjective outcomes second
rather than first in your reactions, is an important part of being a mature adult, and
I think it will help you in the workplace as well as in college.
That's my advice for today.
Thanks for watching; goodbye.