Winning the Blame Game
Blaming is a neat trick we all use: we hold someone else responsible for what happens, becoming either a bystander or a victim.
The blame game is played by blaming. Our failure to provide world-class service is the fault of the building architects, the registration clerk, the doctor, the nurse, the boss or the patient. Once blame is placed, we "win" and move on, having done our part. Fixing the problem is -- you guessed it -- somebody else's job.
It's less fun when the laboratory is blamed: a patient complains their physician told them the lab missed a test (that the physician did not order); a nurse writes up the lab for not drawing a fasting sample (that was ordered in the information system after breakfast was delivered); a doctor blames the lab for rejecting a body fluid specimen (that was clotted because it was collected in the wrong tube).
When the lab is blamed, the blamer is often part of the problem. But facts seldom sway winners in this game. We will never hear, You're right, it's really my fault.
But we can play by a different set of rules that changes the game itself. Let's call it the "explain game." The way the explain game works is simple: instead of blaming a person or a department when something happens, we explain how it happened. This can be painful, because it means we ignore personal attacks. It means stating facts without conclusions or linking events to the failure of one individual. It means acknowledging that systems enable mistakes. Rather than presume the why of a person, we explain the how of a system.
And then we do what the blame gamers are incapable of doing -- we fix the system. That's something I wouldn't mind being blamed for.