Scapegoats and the 3 Key Obstacles to Profitability and Efficiency

Today more than ever we live in a blame culture. If something goes wrong in your life, someone else must be at fault. And if someone else is at fault, they ought to be “hung drawn and quartered” and made to pay. Creating a compensation culture on top of the blame culture.

The effect of this culture of blame is to create an environment of FEAR.

Part of my work as a dispute resolver is mediating medical malpractice cases.

Fear of being sued for malpractice is one of the greatest tragedies of modern medicine. The doctor patient relationship is immediately set up as an adversarial one, lacking in trust and compassion.

Instead of exploring creative and individually tailored treatments, doctors are forced to act according to the book. If something does go wrong, the temptation is to find a SCAPEGOAT extending the fear into the treatment team itself.

This system also generates GREED as lawyers hungrily circle hoping to make big fees.

In a period of recession and economic uncertainty this culture of blame and shame is becoming endemic and it comes at a high cost to organisations

In an environment of fear there are 3 Key Obstacles to efficiency and profitability

•    Lack of Learning
•    Lack of Growth
•    Lack of Compassion

On the other hand, where people feel SAFE instead of fearful and are encouraged to SHARE the knowledge and learning from their failures as well as their triumphs the results are

•    Increased Happiness
•    Increased Creativity
•    Increased Innovation

Do you know which of the 2 environments exists in your organisation?

–    Fear, Blame and Lack of Trust or
–    Safety, Compassion and Learning

And how many scapegoats there may be secretly hiding away?