“We’ve made a commitment to our customer, and we must fulfill that commitment.” This frequently means “I made a commitment to our customer, and YOU must fulfill that commitment (or YOU will suffer).”

Poor managers frequently combine blame and guilt as their two weapons of destruction. Rather than think of positive ways to motivate people, they undermine and discourage, somehow believing that this will produce better results.

Research and anecdotal evidence reveal that reward and positive motivation work far, far better than punishment and negative motivation. And yet, there we are.

One of the many things I love about Agile teams is that we move away from blame and guilt to collaboration, support, respect, and motivation.

This is very cool stuff.

When I get to the Agile Manifesto, I dig into what the four main concepts mean to us as we embrace Agile.

Right now, what’s on my mind is the third value: customer collaboration over contract negotiation.

Here are some of the key points that I find in this statement:

1. Contracts are only put in place so that we can enforce them when we believe that the other party has not met their obligations under the contract.
2. Contracts imply a lack of trust.
3. If you’re actually talking to your customer on an ongoing basis, then contracts generally become superfluous.
4. Requirements specs and design specs are software contracts.
5. See point #3.

As I’ve been doing coaching and training, I’ve had the opportunity to see a variety of different organizations and situations. What has become clear to me is this:

Some organizations that embrace Agile have a culture of openness, safety, respect, and friendliness, where the people who work there are happy to go to work each day. Those employees have a feeling of pleasure and pride in what they do and the people they get to do it with.

Then there are organizations that are built upon a Culture of Blame.  Contracts are about blame.  Specifications are – at least to an extent – about blame. Project plans, which on the surface are about predictability and budgeting and resource allocation, are also about blame. What I’ve seen happen in these organizations, more than once, is that Agile adoptions fail in the worst case, and struggle in the best case.

The problem is that their “leadership” (quotes intentional) are mired in Waterfall practices. The irony of this is that – while management is operating under the fallacious assumption that these practices work – these practices have been demonstrated repeatedly and measurably to fail.

“The first formal description of the waterfall model is often cited to be an article published in 1970 by Winston W. Royce (1929–1995), although Royce did not use the term “waterfall” in this article. Royce was presenting this model as an example of a flawed, non-working model (Royce 1970).” (from Wikipedia)

What seems to go hand in glove with this Waterfall mindset is the contract. These managers need to have specs and project plans so that they can figure out who is at fault when the project is late, over budget, or of low quality. Sadly, those of us who have embraced Agile – and many who still live in the Waterfall world – would tell you that at least one of those three – lateness, over budget, or low quality – is pretty well guaranteed.

Someone asked me recently whether it was possible to succeed in adopting Agile without there being a cultural change.

My answer is a resounding “no!” Without the move to a culture of trust and respect, without the true support – not just lip service or permission – of representatives of “leadership” at all levels*, Agile adoption is very unlikely to succeed.

A Culture of Blame is not always obvious – although frequently it is obvious. But there will generally be smells that a reasonably discerning individual can detect that make it clear that the Culture of Blame is present.

Let’s say we’re having a conversation, and you say something about my mother, and I get angry.

Why do I get angry?

I’m not a psychotherapist, in spite of my education in psychology and a family full of psychotherapists*. I am a student of human nature, so I’ll take my best guess.

I’d say there are some good possibilities: I feel disrespected; I feel that I – through what you said about my mother – am being judged; I love my mother, and feel that you’ve disrespected her.

All of these are valid. Yet why angry? Why would any of these lead to me feeling angry?

I believe that it comes down to my sense of self-worth – that somehow, by disrespecting and/or judging me and/or my mother, you have also called into question my value on this planet.

Okay – I get that, too. Having someone question your value could be annoying.

But why? Why does someone else’s opinion, belief, or random thought matter?

Because I don’t want to – or can’t – acknowledge or deal with my own fear of being less valuable. And you’ve just put it out there in words!

So I blame you.  Internally, I believe it’s your fault. Externally, I take action on that belief.

I’m lying. I’m lying to myself and telling myself that I’m angry because you have disrespected me. I’m lying to you in the same way.

Perhaps the real problem is my self-image and sense of self-worth. Perhaps if I felt more comfortable with who I am and what I do and all the rest of it, instead of feeling angry, I’d feel some pity and/or sympathy.

In retrospect, this is part of what happened with my friend the other day in our email exchange that I mentioned in Learning to type. It would have been very easy to react to his hostility and his hurtful words. It was tempting now and then.

Fortunately for me, I’ve been working on not lying to myself, not lying to others, not taking responsibility for others’ feelings and behaviors, and not assigning responsibility for my feelings and behaviors.

He didn’t make me angry, nor did I feel angry, because I recognized what was going on. It was like a rain storm – nothing I can do about it, it’s got nothing to do with me, and I just have to wait and it’ll end.

Being honest with myself is hard. Being honest with you is harder. And both are worth doing.

I refer to myself as the white sheep of the family.

Personally, I catch myself at it far more frequently than I’d like. I catch myself asking questions like “Whose fault is this?” rather than the question I much prefer: “How did we get here, and what did I do or not do that contributed?”

The idea of taking personal responsibility is an essential one in my life. It applies in my personal life, when dealing with family, friends and acquaintances.  And it applies in my professional life, when dealing with co-workers, colleagues, and business associates.

Assigning fault and/or blame is relatively easy to understand as a motivation – if it’s someone else’s fault, then it’s not mine, and maybe I can feel better about myself. Of course, in taking that approach, I abrogate responsibility for my own behaviors or inactions, and disguise my own contributions.

Sadly, it doesn’t really work. I don’t actually improve my self-image by passing off the fault. All I do is mask my own feelings of fear/inadequacy/responsibility/guilt.  Really, it doesn’t work.

What it does is build up a backlog of self-deception. That backlog will come to bite me. I will become defensive, aggressive, and hostile when I am approached – even kindly or lovingly – about any incident where I might have some responsibility. Why? Because I feel challenged to own up to my own dishonesty, and that’s just freakin’ hard.

Note that I say “responsibility”, not culpability, fault, or any other word that has judgment implied in it.

Responsibility is a good thing, and there’s no judgment attached to taking or accepting responsibility.  Only to denying or declining responsibility for my own behaviors.

The next time you find yourself looking for someone to whom to assign fault and blame, stop and ask yourself my question: “How did we get here, and what did I do or not do that contributed?”

Then, take action on your answer first before looking for someone else.