4 ms·

Placing blame in a business setting is overvalued. Let's all worry about blaming someone for a problem instead of fixing it. It's so much more productive.

• onion2k 10y ago
  How do you fix a problem if you don't know what the cause was?
  • mbrutsch 10y ago
    Fixing begins at "someone screwed up". Blaming delves into who screwed up, which is usually not required to fix the problem (since there may actually be no one to blame).
    • onion2k 10y ago
      Sometimes that's true. If you have a team of people doing approximately the same thing then knowing which one of them broken something has little value. You just need a process to stop things braking again in the future. But in the case of a disparate group of people who all do different things, you need to know who caused the problem in order to know how to fix it - the "who" and the "what" are the essentially same question. In the case of Theranos the problem of "what went wrong?" and "who fucked up?" are effectively the same - either the investors didn't do proper due diligence or the founders misled them. You can't fix the problem without knowing the cause. It doesn't really matter whether you couch it in terms of "what" or "who"; knowing one automatically informs you of the other.
      • deadowl 10y ago
        It's not hard for an organization to put a system in place to mitigate any particular individual from making a poor decision. Entering into any decision that is high-stakes inherently justifies the cost of the existence or creation of such a system. For example, RFP processes are often required for any spending over a particular threshold on external vendors. Hiring processes often include input from more than one person. If the investors didn't do their proper due diligence, then they can take steps to be more responsible in the future. If the founders misled them, then it becomes an economic and political issue of how to address and further prevent such problems.
      • mbrutsch 10y ago
        I disagree. A different approach would be to say "Don't know what happened before, but moving forward Ted is accountable for A, Alice is accountable for B, etc". Knowing what happened before serves zero purpose except to shame. All that effectively matters is what happens from this point forward. You put a process in place this time, to monitor what Ted and Alice are doing. Next time, it's your fault when it breaks, because you were forewarned, and you should have known better. Next time, you know what happened, because you put controls in place. Or just throw someone under the bus and keep repeating the same mistakes.
        • brazzledazzle 10y ago
          The argument you're having is exactly why blameless post-mortems are so difficult to insert into existing companies. Shifting from a desire for "justice" to "doing what's best moving forward" is really hard for a lot of people.
          • mbrutsch 10y ago
            There is a segment of the populace who feels that every "wrong" must be "punished", and they generally make life miserable for everyone else. Usually no one will speak up for fear of being punished along with the "guilty".
  • pjc50 10y ago
    The air accident investigation profession long ago realised that you can either run an investigation to find out what happened or an investigation to find out who to blame, but not both. If there is blame afoot people will lie and destroy evidence. If the investigation culture is orientated away from blame and shame then it is possible to get people to come forward with information.
    • onion2k 10y ago
      Sure, but sometimes finding out what happened informs you of who is blame (see my other comment).
      • pjc50 10y ago
        Yes, but my point is that unless you set out to avoid casting blame, there is a huge incentive to avoid blame by sabotaging the investigation.
    • mcguire 10y ago
      The air accident investigation game is a prime example of blame avoidance because there is money involved. The airframe engineers point at the engines, the engine guys point at the ATC, and everyone points at the pilots because they don't have any money and don't leave a lot of records.
      • pjc50 10y ago
        But overall the process is tremendously successful at accident reduction, no?
        • marcosdumay 10y ago
          To be honest, I don't know how much aviation past record is because of investigation quality, and how much is due simply to everybody's goal being aligned towards safety. Rarely industry players will invest in security instead of just banking the money. But aviation companies, airports, manufacturers - nobody wants to have any of their products involved in an accident.