When buy-in seems slow, or worse, isn’t progressing at all, there can be a tendency to assign blame. This is pretty common so I’m certain many of you have seen this play out.

A popular first target is the plan.

“What’s wrong with the plan? Something’s wrong with the plan. The plan isn’t working. The plan is wrong.”

The team usually comes back saying “Nope, the plan is right and we’re doing exactly what we said we were going to do.”

Next stop… it must be a “people” problem.

“The wrong people are running this thing.”

“The resistors are the problem.” These are usually the easiest of targets.

“They don’t get it. They’re stubborn and stuck in their old ways. They don’t like change. They don’t want to change. Nobody likes change.”

The theme in either of these scenarios is the same.

“It’s not us; it’s them.”

I’ve seen this many times.

What if we turn that around?

It’s not them, it’s us.

When things don’t seem to be working as well as you’d intended, think first of these two words… challenge accepted.

Looking for someone to blame isn’t productive and usually leads to damaged relationships and trust. It’s not possible to predict every situation or perspective. We can do our best to anticipate but there’ll undoubtedly be something that gets missed.

And focus on outcomes, not activities. A plan is one thing, results are quite another. Being able to say “we did what we promised” is much different than saying “we got what we wanted.”

Step up and be the one to find ways forward.

And reassure everyone with that simple line delivered many years ago by George Costanza.

“It’s not you, it’s me.”

Have a great weekend!