In the most recent waves of information about how best to implement Lean, an old piece of wisdom is surfacing once again. Employee involvement is essential and you cannot maximize employee involvement without a blame-free culture. At first glance, a blame free culture seems to be about top-down or peer-to-peer finger pointing and this is true. The term blame-free is, for the most part, a challenge to management to eliminate blame from the workplace. Management must take the lead role or it will not happen.
Less obvious is the fact that blame-free is also a challenge to everyone; blame-free means blame-free from every angle, including from the bottom-up. A blame-free culture is a culture that is omnidirectional; blame is absent from all vantage points. Management must lead the charge and initially the focus should be on management behavior. Then, after progress has been made, management should make the full scope of their expectations clear. Everyone must work together to eliminate blame from the workplace - top-down, bottom-up, and side-to-side. Blaming is an easy trap to fall into and front line employees are just as likely to fall into the trap as management. Ultimately everyone must recognize that front line employees blaming management is just as non productive as management blaming front line employees or managers blaming management peers.
It is important to see this topic from all sides but please do not mistake expecting front line employees to not blame management as an attempt to squash open and honest communication in the workplace. "Professional confrontation” plays an important role in bringing problems to light quickly. There should be tolerance for people expressing frustration and having trouble finding the right words. As long as everyone refrains from personal attacks or other obvious inappropriate behavior, tolerance should be the rule. The key is to be patient. Blaming is a habit and habits take time to correct. Help people find and practice language that exposes problems without causing harmful consequences - like anger, increased stress levels, or divisive “us” and “them” thinking - then give them time to make the adjustment.
