Don’t Wear the “Blame & Complain” T-shirt
A while back I was sitting at a coffee shop with a friend and our conversation took us to the subject of people’s unwillingness to take responsibility for their decisions and actions and their tendency to blame others and complain about all their problems. My friend said, as he set down his latte, “If I could buy these people a custom t-shirt, it would say in big bold letters, ‘Blame & Complain.'”Now that’s a t-shirt no leader wants to be offered. To blame and to complain are the opposite attitudes and behaviors of people who are making a difference in the lives other others and in the world.
Instead of blaming others for problems, leaders take responsibility when things don’t go right even when it’s not directly their fault. The legendary college football coach, Bear Bryant, use to say “If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes really good, then you did it.” Blame, self-justification, and skirting responsibility takes leaders and their teams nowhere good. It only leads to loss of credibility, respect and broken trust ending in fractured relationships. And all those places create a spiral of poor performance which will never be broken but only exasperated by blaming and complaining.
As to complaining, leaders don’t waste a New York minute complaining because it doesn’t do one thing to solve problems. A leader’s job is to help their team move forward, to tackle problems and to solve them. This takes hard work, time, energy and focus, all of which get diluted with complaining. As I often tell our team “If it wasn’t for problems and obstacles we face every day, SpringHill wouldn’t need most of us. Our job is to solve, deal and prevent problems so why complain about them; it’s why most of us have jobs.”
So don’t ever be tempted to wear the “Blame & Complain” t-shirt instead always be quick to put on the “Responsible & Will Solve It” shirt, it’s the one t-shirt leaders are always willing put on.
How to Get Unstuck when You’re Stuck in a Moment that You Can’t Get out of!
Sometimes I quote the chorus of the U2 song, “Stuck in a Moment You can’t Get Out of”, to my kids. They know exactly why I say it and what it means. It means if they feel stuck they need to find options. In other words I encourage them to never allow themselves to be stuck, handcuffed or trapped in a situation, place or relationship because they think they have no way out or no place to go.You see the reality is when we’re “stuck in a moment and can’t get out of it” it’s almost always a state of mind, not the truth of our situation. And the more we feel stuck or trapped, the harder it is for us to see there could be alternatives. When we have options we’re not truly stuck, even if it feels that way. And, from my experience, we rarely have zero options.
So here are four things I’ve learned that help me get unstuck:
- Keep an open mind, always believe there’s another way, place or option. Don’t ever give up this belief.
- Think creatively. What may seem impossible is usually more possible than it looks at first glance.
- Seek out other perspectives from people not stuck in your moment. They often see the options more clearly and quickly than we do.
- Don’t seek input from those stuck with you. They’ll only reinforce your sense of having no options.
Remember your options will most likely be less than perfect. You’re not trying to find nirvana, just someplace better than your current situation. Think of it as just one step to a better place along a path to the best place.
And here’s how it all works – when you identify your options, you now have a choice. By definition, having a choice means you’re free, and when you’re free you’re no long stuck in a moment you can’t get out of.
