Finger-pointing doesn’t get much done. People think that by pointing fingers at others they perceive to be guilty of some act of omission (not doing what they were supposed to do) or commission (doing something they weren’t supposed to do), that they’ve deflected responsibility successfully.
“It’s not my fault that the pump failed after 200 running hours; we had to hurry up and get it back on line.”
“Purchasing bought these ridiculous valves that don’t hold up to the pressures in this system.”
“We couldn’t complete the PMs on Line 2 because the operators broke Line 4.”
In the short term, there’s a sort of reward for finger-pointing in that those pointing their digits at others seem to be trying keep themselves out of the “hot seat.”
Finger-pointing increases in direct proportion to the amount of distrust and lack of teamwork in an organization. Trust and teamwork are affected by internal and external drivers. A bad economy, for instance, is an external driver that forces management to make budget cuts, often meaning headcount. Often internal drivers are found in dysfunctional organizations where operations, sales, and marketing, or some other department takes a preeminent role to “drive the bus” without sufficient regard for necessary supporting functions. If you take an objective look at an organization, the accountability for low trust and low teamwork falls to senior management and department management.
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An example of a truly well-run organization is a manufacturing firm I visited last year. Upon entering the plant, it was immediately obvious that there was a high degree of trust and teamwork. People were smiling, production schedules were posted with good and bad performance indications. Most importantly, there were collaborative efforts in place to resolve problems that arose.
Between operations and maintenance, I saw operations people taking responsibility for an accumulation of waste that caused an upset. No one was going to be given time off or fired, so people didn’t view assuming responsibility for upsets as a bad thing. Just the opposite — they wanted to make things better. They were most concerned about identifying the root cause and putting in place practices that would reduce the likelihood of future upsets.
