Who will be guilty when an accident happens or an error is found - that is the question!

Blame game contest

Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus
and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians,
hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls
of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting
of dogs, of all birds, and the will of Zeus was accomplished
since that time when first there stood in division of conflict
Atreus’ son the lord of men and brilliant Achilleus....

One of the most destructive human pastimes is playing the blame game. It has been responsible for mass casualties of war, regrettable acts of rage, and on a broad interpersonal social, familial and work-related level, a considerable amount of human frustration and unhappiness.

The blame game consists of blaming another person for an event or state of affairs thought to be undesirable, and persisting in it instead of pro-actively making changes that ameliorate the situation.

In most cases the drive shaft of this unhealthy game is a series of four, irrational beliefs:
1. UNJUSTIFIED ASSIGNMENT OF RESPONSIBILITY
If something has gone wrong, or is not as it should be, then someone who is held responsible must be identified and blamed for causing or preventing the undesirable situation.

2. LOSS OF RESPECT
Someone’s sloppiness and mistakes or organisation's malfeasance diminishes the respect for that person or organisation.

3. SOCIAL STIGMA
It is acceptable to treat this person in ways one deserves to be treated such as ignoring, name-calling, and in extreme cases, physical assault.

4. NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES
One must not accept any significant degree of responsibility for the situation in as much as to do so would be to admit that for oneself, and therefore deserving of the same disapprobation and negative treatment.

We see these play out quite routinely in the mainstream of life.
A man beats up his wife and blames the victim for not “understanding” him.
A woman cheats on her husband and blames him for working too much.
On and on.

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Japanese and the western mentality
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In Japan quality ensuring team and the programmers form one unit. There is a difference between the Japanese and the western mentality. Our society hopes to improve by compartmentalised-silo activity, whereas the eastern has a more holistic view. Each and every one feels responsible for the whole company and not so much for his own segment of work in particular.

Clearly, there are cases in which a person is blameworthy for a malfeasance and acknowledging blame does not involve playing the blame game. In such cases there is a constructive way of settling a dispute as in assigning legal responsibility in a civil matter. Such assignment of blame is conducted according to objective standards and does not involve disrespectful treatment of others as does playing the blame game. Outside a legal context, the assignment of blame may be done for purposes of ameliorating a situation.

The willingness to accept responsibility for one’s mistake can be an important prerequisite toward making constructive change.

However, there is a fundamental difference between such mistake and the irrational kind involved in the blame game. The latter involves a systematic playing out of the four blame game claims described above.

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Contracts and positive attitude
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Contracts serve to attribute blame when something goes wrong.
Do NOT accept to sign the contract, where the client wants to transfer his operational risk on you.
Often customers put the blame on their contact person, it may me waiter of help-desk operator. They always will try identifying someone else then themselves or "force major" as an appropriate target for finger-pointing when some incidents or accidents are identified.

An indemnity clause is a contractual transfer of risk between two contractual parties generally to prevent loss or compensate for a loss which may occur as a result of a specified undesired event.
Customers may be obligated to indemnify their conversation partners for liabilities incurred while carrying out responsibilities under the relationship.
Contractor will indemnify and hold harmless the Indemnities from any costs, damages, and fees reasonably incurred by any of them that are attributable to any such claim.


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Avoid "Someone Else Must Always Be to Blame" Mentality
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Clearly, the first of these beliefs is false because in many cases. For example, traffic accidents can be “true accidents”; people sometimes don’t get along or like each other because of personality conflicts; sometimes people come in contact with a virus and catch it to no fault of anyone. People can suffer heart attacks or get cancer without it being someone else’s fault.


Indeed, when people play the blame game, they often engage in further irrational thinking in order to justify blaming others.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc: Just because one event followed the other doesn’t mean the first caused the second. The fallacy is classic but it’s a lot easier to cast blame than to be honest. The blame game is often breeding ground for irrational squalid behaviour, without valid evidence.


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Who will be guilty when an accident happens or an error is found
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The second belief of the blame game is also irrational because it confuses the error or accident with the person. Here it is not simply “what you did was wrong.”
Often an error should not be personal; to stigmatize someone for it; It’s a cardinal rule of playing the blame game - to find who will be guilty when an accident happens or an error is found - who is the blameworthy person.
Quality assurance and controlling process is of vital importance, like in the media content creation: writing, proof reading, editing, commenting and improving the message and content quality.

Often the games are not always realistic. So we really oughtn’t to damn the person just because we are inclined to damn the wrongdoing. What’s true of the part is not necessarily true of the whole. It’s a simple rule of reality—and life.

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Treating them with Disrespect
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The use of personal attacks, and the use of verbal and other force are all classic ways to alienate people and to shut down the avenue for meaningful interpersonal communication whereby disagreements can be rationally addressed.

The blame game, however, does not aim at constructive resolution of disagreements and acute problems. Instead it tends to perpetuate malcontent among all concerned.

Much of this malcontent has to do with the refusal to take personal responsibility. People make mistakes and engage in regrettable actions. But by failing to take personal responsibility the road to constructive change is blocked. This refusal is piloted by the belief that somehow it is not okay to make mistakes. Better to blame others than to admit culpability. For, making mistakes means being flawed and being flawed means being unworthy of respect.

But what is really flawed is this unrealistic demand for perfection. While people are not perfect they can learn from their mistakes—but only if they admit them and change their behavior in the future. Unfortunately, the blame game looks outside oneself to cast blame.

It is never me in any significant way; it is rather the other person who is to blame. Serious people should take there legal and operational responsibility for their words and actions or lack of the performance of their commitment.


How to Stop Playing the Blame Game
* Do you look for someone else to blame when things appear to have gone wrong?
* Do you tend to look down on the person you have marked out as scapegoat - victim of some particular accident or mistake?
* Do you treat the "guilty person/s" in a disrespectful manner and raised tone of voice and think yourself justified? How often?
* If the answers are affirmative to above questions, THINK what should you do differently for happiness sake?
* STOP to be a blame gamer and find an alternative solution!*

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Who control the controllers?
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Give up with the blame claim that someone always has to be blamed and made to pay -- it does not mean that it should not be clear who is responsible for some particular detail and who is responsible for the whole situation.

is it an accident?
was it negligence?
is it carefully executed crime or an act of sabotage?

Recast responsibility as a way to learn from the mistakes as well as those of others. Accept the fallibility as a route toward improvement. Try to make things better, but rest content that you live in an imperfect world. Embrace this imperfect universe and the fallible beings in it, yourself and others — and try to think pro-actively, what to do when problems escalate, and how to avoid them upfront.


It's not good to play the blame game, but here are some words that have the root CULPA (Latin for "blame"):
- CULPABLE (deserving blame)
- INCULPATE (suggest that someone is guilty)
- CULPRIT (person or thing who has done wrong)
- EXCULPATE (to clear from a charge of guilt)
- CULPABILITY (guilt or blame that is deserved)
- MEA CULPA (my guilt or blame)