Keeping Your Career on Track: Responding to Failure and Assigning Blame

Keeping Your Career on Track:  Responding to Failure and Assigning Blame

Daniel J. Stone

Ohio Dominican University

     Possessing the propensity to work above and beyond what is written in a job description, have good time management, and the ability to complete tasks on time is one way for members in a workplace to determine success and superior performance, especially as the American economy moves forward in its current recession.  However, not everyone in the workplace agrees that a project that did not meet the established expectations as failure or a missed deadline as underperformance.  In these cases, there is a breakdown that can be traced to the root cause of a lack of self-awareness to possessed deficiencies and a lack of political awareness to what is acceptable by the organization when failure or underperformance has occurred (Dattner & Hogan, 2011).  Since everyone in the workplace does not see things the same, how people respond to failure or underperformance and assigning blame is essential in ensuring that an individual’s career stays on track.

            When failure or underperformance has occurred and the members at a workplace are at odds, one or more of the members in the workplace have a dysfunctional reaction to the situation and assign blame accordingly.  For example, others are being blamed which is known as extrapunative, blame is being denied which is known as impunitive, and others blame themselves too harshly which is known as intropunitive.  Furthermore, for those that do possess these deficiencies, they can be remedied if correcting the matter is embraced.  Fortunately for some, they do not possess these deficiencies when assigning blame.  In a sense, these individuals are in control of keeping their careers on track (Dattner & Hogan, 2011).        

            In order to determine what the dysfunctional reaction to the situation is, it is important to know what message is being sent out to the other members in the workplace.  This is known as self-awareness.  Self-awareness can be carried out in a number of ways such as with personality tests, reflecting on challenging events in the past, and consulting with a trusted colleague (Dattner & Hogan, 2011).     

Not only self-awareness, but also political awareness is factored into the assignment of blame.  Conflict in this area occurs when a member in the workplace sends a signal when failure or underperformance occurs that is inconsistent with the organization’s established expectations.  By doing this, the messages that are being sent can be determined if they are being perceived positively or negatively in the workplace (Dattner & Hogan, 2011).      

            As stated earlier, individuals in the workplace that possess issues with assigning blame can have the deficiency corrected if fixing the dysfunctional reaction is embraced.   This can be accomplished by listening to others in the workplace, allowing an open channel of communication, reflection on the situation and people in the workplace, thinking before you act, and search for a lesson when failure or underperformance occurs.  Once the situation has been corrected at the individual level, it can then be applied to others in the workplace that possesses a dysfunctional reaction to assigning blame.  By doing this, everyone in the workplace has an increased level of their own self-awareness and political awareness to what is expected (Dattner & Hogan, 2011).   

            In conclusion, meeting desired results in determining success and superior performance is essential in ensuring that your career stays on track.  Knowing yourself and the expectations in the workplace prevent assigning blame incorrectly when failure or underperformance arises.   Assigning blame incorrectly is done when members in the workplace blaming others, denying blame or blaming oneself.  By embracing a change in assigning blame, an individual is able to focus on producing in their position and organizations are able to carry out their mission in a satisfactory manner.         

            In reflecting on the reading of the professional growth article, I recalled the time I worked in a new branch of a large organization and my manager was a new to her position.  Her career was derailed due to denying blame coupled with sending the false signal that the political awareness was being carried out due to oversight by the new manager’s immediate supervisor. 

This could have been prevented had the new manager listened to me and my peers at the organization.  Instead, when we asked questions her response would be, “Didn’t I already tell you?” 

Since the organization was an “at will” employer, the political awareness was to come in early and stay late until the number of customers increased.  At that time, the organization would bring on a second director.  There was no outward display that this person possessed the propensity to work above and beyond what is written in a job description, the new director set the tone that underperformance was the status quo which resulted in failure due to customers becoming more and more dissatisfied with the services being provided.  

             In closing, I later moved on to help the same organization open a new branch.  The lack of ownership by the new manager that I worked for resulting in failure the first attempt that branch went for its accreditation was never too far from my thoughts.  I saw to it to communicate by asking anyone who would give me the time to ensure that all was being done.  While there was a steep learning curve on my part to ensure success, so far, I’ve managed to keep my career on track.  Fortunately, I managed to overcome my initial period as a new director by being successful in my branch’s accreditation.  However, I could tell that I was going to have to do things differently if I wanted to take my career to the next level.  Since I was familiar with the political awareness, I embraced the way that I assigned blame while reflecting on the way forward in an effort to minimize failure and maintain success which is one of the main reasons I am now pursuing my MBA. 

  References

Dattner, B. & Hogan, R. (2011).  Once you’re aware of your bad habits, you can move toward more-open, adaptive responses.  The strategies needed can work for any of the dysfunctional types. Harvard Business Review, April 2011, Vol. 89 Issue 4, p117-121.

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