This paper tells why we need to reframe the concept of blame if we are ever going to improve anything. Barry suggests blame is a concept with flawed thinking that is re-inforced through the application of Newtonian Science's idea of cause and effect. Cause and effect can only be proven in a closed system. (The paper is an outline of a workshop session run by Barry Mapp at the Alliance of Deming Consultants - now the Deming Alliance - in 2010) Barry says "My hope was that in this session we could get to an ‘ah-ha’ point where we could see how ‘blame’ and ‘cause’ are so tightly linked in our psyche and our language, that the best approach in order to alter mindsets and get people to look at systems rather than individuals may be to start to using different language".

1. THE BLAME
REFRAME
- How to move towards Blame-Free Thinking
Barry Mapp
Summary of a workshop presented at the Alliance of Deming Consultants
at Warwick University on September 13th 2010.

2. The Blame Reframe - How to move towards Blame-Free Thinking
Summary of a workshop presented at the Alliance of Deming Consultants at Warwick
University on September 13th 2010.
This workshop session was intended to get participants thinking more deeply about the “Blame
Game” and to look at how our ‘language’ patterns may still be contributing to this way of thinking.
In groups, we started by looking at the possible ‘origins’ of blame and then looked at whether the
concept of blame helped or hinder ‘improvement’. Working in groups, feedback suggested that
there were some potential benefits of ‘blame’ but most of these were to do with things that did not
specifically relate to improvement of the system (more that ‘blame’ shifted focus and reduced stress
for those who could deny involvement). However feedback in the session also identified that the
blame game hinders improvement in that it blocks proper investigation, it encourages short-term
thinking, leads to misrepresentation of data, and to risk-avoidance. As the Harvard Project (below)
intimated when blame is the game, understanding is the casualty.
Discussion
Deming highlighted the importance of the System as the source for things that ‘go wrong’ and
through his deep understanding of variation showed that the most likely ‘causes’ of problems
derived from the systems that individuals had created rather than from individuals themselves. The
implication being that if we have the need to find ‘blame’ then we should look at the system rather
than the people.
My hope was that in this session we could get to an ‘ah-ha’ point where we could see how ‘blame’
and ‘cause’ are so tightly linked in our psyche and our language, that the best approach in order to
alter mindsets and get people to look at systems rather than individuals may be to start to using
different language.
From assigning blame to mapping the contribution system
One of the approaches that I like very much as an alternative to playing the blame game, is the
concept of the ‘contribution system’ developed by the team at the Harvard Negotiation Project. This
project (on-going) is aimed at finding processes to resolve difficult conversations. Difficult
conversations represent a ‘complex system’ so some of the learning from difficult conversations is
applicable to any complex system like manufacturing or service. It is also very difficult to find your
own contribution to ‘problems’ and the only way sometimes to get an insight is to look at the
situation from all perspectives. In the case of conversations this means asking the other parties to
elucidate your contribution to the situation. It often requires several contributions to occur
simultaneously or close together for a particular outcome to occur. Each contribution on its own
may not have resulted in the problem occurring. Real world scenarios are more like the game
Buckaroo (where you need lots of contributions to see any effect – when the horse ‘bucks’) and
contribution is thus a better word than ‘cause’. If a single solitary event on its own results in a
specific outcome then we can call this the sole contributor (meaning that the ‘contribution’ model
can replace and subsume the ‘blame’ model)
Here is a summary from the Harvard Research Project comparing blame (looking for the
cause) and contribution:
Blame is about judging (and it looks backward) and contribution is about understanding (and looks
forward) and:
The Cost of the Blame Frame:
• when blame is the goal, understanding is the casualty
• focussing on blame hinders prevention in the future (ie hinders solutions)
• blame often leaves a bad system undiscovered

3. The Benefits of the Contribution Frame:
• contribution is easier to raise
• contribution encourages learning and improvement
We have already reframed “control” so why not “cause”?
Some iconoclasts conversant with Deming Thinking have recognised that the terminology and
concepts we learnt in the past (at work, school and home) are part of the problem and therefore
havesought to influence changes in approach through reframing the language we use to speak about
ideas and assumptions derived from pre-Newtonian and Newtonian thinking (when we sought to
make the world around us conform to a mechanical universe of great predictability and certainty ).
Donald Wheeler for example has perceptively called the maths we learn at school as ‘math world’
maths (because it factors out variation and makes the ‘shades of grey’ world look ‘black & white’)
and he reframes the mathematical thinking that incorporates (rather than excludes) variation as a
‘real world’ maths.
‘Control’ was another word that many in the Deming Community have sought to reframe (because
the idea of ‘control’ is flawed in complex systems)
So ‘control charts’ have become ‘Process Behaviour Charts’ a term that more accurately describe
what the charts do and Glasser has reframed his ‘Control Theory’ as ‘Choice Theory’ (because it is
about choice rather than control)
The purpose of this workshop was to reflect seriously on the word ‘cause’ and to debate whether a
reframe of this word would give a better and deeper understanding of what actually happens in the
“real world”. The flapping of butterfly wings in one part of the world can be the final input into a
complex system that results in a hurricane in another part of the world but it would be wrong to say
the butterfly ‘caused’ the hurricane!
My belief is that ‘cause’ is far too ‘black and white’ a concept for an understanding of events that
occur in a complex ‘real world’. The real world is described more realistically in terms of
probabilities rather than certainties and so we need to use language that is more probabilistic than
certain. ‘Cause’ is too certain a term for what we now know, based on our understanding of post-
Newtonian science.
So my suggestion is that if we are to help shift how the world thinks about blame, we need to
be prepared ourselves to shift how we speak about ‘cause’. My premise is that we should
consider adopting the ‘contribution system’ concept outlined in this paper such that we might then
talk about ‘special contributors and common contributors’ (to the variation seen in a process or
system) rather than special and common causes
One of the immediate advantages of the ‘contribution’ language is that it is actually easier to accept
our own part in a ‘problem’. Rather than simply ‘blaming’ the other partners for a breakdown in a
relationship we can talk openly about the recognition of own contribution to the problems (it is in
recognising our own contribution that we learn how to avoid finding ourselves in the same situation
again). In the (true) story about the new employee who left the hose pipe running at the end of their
shift after washing down a brand new boat, to find that in the morning the boat had sunk – the
contribution system gets all parties to consider after the event all the contributing factors the
knowledge of which can lead to improvement e.g. such contributions could be human error,
possible deficiencies in induction/training but most of all to look also about how the ‘system’ in
operation may have contributed (in this case the best solution was to put a timer on the hosepipe not

4. to focus on human frailty). We need to move from obsession with seeking to assign blame to a
desire to map out the contribution system as a mechanism for informing the real possibility of
facilitating improvement.
Let’s take a look at some scenarios where our instinct to look for the ‘cause’ is not helpful as
far as improvement is concerned
Scenario 1
Three boys arguing in the playground one boy holding his jaw
Our usual ‘who is to blame’ approach is to ask something like “who started this?” (impossible to get
a straight answer) to “who hit Jimmy”. If a culprit is found (cause) invariably they get some
punishment and the others walk free. If this is seen as an opportunity for improvement in
everybody’s behaviour and we actively seek the contributions, we may find out through a non
judgmental questioning approach that Fred (egged on by Tony) hit Jimmy who had called Fred a
‘****’ . We now have an opportunity to impart some relevant emotional intelligence skills for all
three of the boys whereas blaming the last boy in the sequence probably means that no-one learns
anything (except the Fred perhaps learns that the world is not ‘fair’)
Scenario 2
A wife goes off with another man and then seeks a divorce. If the husband simply blames the wife
for her adultery without considering how he might have contributed to the breakdown of the
marriage then if he remarries he may find himself in a similar situation in his new relationship
because he had not looked at how he might be contributing to failed relationships.
Scenario 3
A man is mugged and his laptop bag is snatched and stolen. The contribution system gets the man to
consider his contribution to what happened. Clearly he was not to ‘blame’ but did he contribute in
some way to this particular event happening to him and could he have done anything differently so
as to avoid this happening again?
Summary
The ‘contribution’ model can replace and subsume the ‘blame’ model
Are there other models that encourage us to move away from the concept of ‘blame’?
(1) In the book ‘How the way we talk can change the way we work’, (ISBN 0-7879-6378-X)
Keegan and Lahey take us through their seven languages for transformation and the first
step in their transformation process is to move from the language of complaint to the
language of commitment. And their second step is to move from the language of Blame to
the language of Personal Responsibility. In a similar vane to the ‘contributions’ model taking
personal responsibility directs our attention to places where we have maximum influence.
(2) In some of the ‘new psychologies’ like NLP for example we can see the concept of blame
described as a ‘cognitive distortion’ e.g. based on the work of Aaron Beck and others, in
‘Feeling Good - The New Mood Therapy’, David Burns outlines 10 common mistakes in
thinking and one of these mistakes is the concept of personalisation and blame
Blame hurts morale, it misdirects energy, it feeds existing biases and it inhibits creativity. I have
written several blog articles about how the ‘Old Psychologies’ are embedded in the “Compliance
Company” ethos whereas the “New Psychologies” are very congruent with the ethos of “Creation
Companies (see http://barrymapp.com/2009/07/creation-companies-apply-the-principles-of-new-
psychology-to-business/). Creation Companies are ones that create a ‘blame-free’ culture.

5. Conclusions from the session
There was general agreement that playing the ‘blame game’ had a negative effect on the opportunity
for process improvement. However the idea that we should change our own language patterns to
talk about ‘contribution’ rather than ‘cause’ was controversial for many consultants. This would
mean for example replacing the terms common and special ‘causes’ with the terms common and
special ‘contributions’.
I welcome feedback on this article Barry Mapp
Further Reading
Harvard Negotiation Project “Difficult Conversations” Stone, Patton and Heen ISBN 0-14-027782-X