The Blame Game

In today’s world economy, we as a Nation should act like a unified body. It is like teamwork in any organized body. Teamwork brings synergy. We become more than just the sum of our parts.

But, in order to be a team the first thing that must go is “finger pointing.” These acts are by far the most destructive force to synergy and to existence known to man.

If we allow ourselves to be defeated from within, we will loose our great protections of freedom that this proud nation has been famous for.

A very good management consultant named Tom Peters studied the synergy of the Japanese team concept. While we in the U.S. will put one or two engineers on a single component of a project, the Japanese tend to put a team of up to a dozen or more on a single component.

But Tom said the attitude of teamwork in the Japanese culture was never more prevalent than in the way they solve problems. He said:

“Great managers and great team members look to fix the problem, while poor managers and poor team members look to fix the blame.”

This is the attitude of the Japanese teams. They have learned the destructive nature of "finger Pointing" and do not do it.

I may be paraphrasing a little as I don’t recall the exact quote, but you get the idea.

Any way let us examine some of the ridiculous cases of the Blame Game:

1. It is God’s fault – This one is really over the top. God does often put his hand in nature to bring about his works, but that would make it a “challenge”, not a “fault.” We are often put in a situation as a person or as a Country because of our needs to grow, or our need to be reminded of how we have taken our blessings for granted, and how we have been slow to “bend our knee” in prayer enough. Sometimes we are given challenges because we need them to grow and a person's true character can only really be displayed in a crisis.

2. It is Bush’s fault –"That government is best which governs least.” – Thomas Jefferson. This quote shows that the closer to home we are to the problems, the better equipped we are to solve them. It is clear that the main item that was not taken care of that would have made this disaster much more manageable is the lack of attention to the levy. Had the levy been built to withstand this type of Hurricane, we would not have lost a city. And that was something the local governments should have handled, not the Federal Government.

Let’s don’t look for whom to blame for the lack of attention to the levy, but instead let’s “look to fix the problem” instead of the blame.