Talk about the bug, not who wrote it. Teams that hunt for blame stop reporting problems.
LEADERSHIP
WHAT THIS MEANS
A problem and a person are two different subjects, and only one of them can be fixed. The moment a group starts attaching errors to names, the sensible move for everybody is keeping quiet about whatever they find, including their own work. The faults do not disappear; they just get discovered later and by somebody else. Blame is expensive because it succeeds at making people careful about reporting.
Describe the next problem you find by what it does, with no mention of who did it. If somebody names a person, steer back to the thing itself. Report one of your own errors first so it is clearly safe.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
Which problem did you turn into a conversation about someone?
MORE IN LEADERSHIP & INFLUENCE
- Morale isn’t pizza. It’s people believing the work matters and the plan makes sense.
- Standards aren’t strictness. They’re telling people what good looks like before they get blamed for missing it.
- When someone gets roasted online and everyone goes quiet, one calm “that’s not cool” changes the whole thread.
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.