Blaming other people is effective at solving problems if you can change other people and you can go back in time to change the past.

For the rest of us, blame is effective at polarizing others against you and undermining relationships. If that’s your goal, I recommend it.

It’s also effective at making you feel self-righteous and superior, until the polarization kicks in and you feel alienated or like you have to blame more. If that’s your goal, I recommend it. You can tell people you have to understand the problem to solve it and that’s why you’re doing it, but they’ll just see you fooling yourself. Spending that time on understanding the solution will get you farther.

For everyone else, I find that focusing on acting on the present solves problems more effectively than analyzing and criticizing the past. This strategy has served me well:

Don’t look for blame but take responsibility for improving things to the extent you can

I’ve written about it before, but it bears repeating. If you blame a lot, I bet changing this strategy will improve your leadership and life more than most things. Here are a couple past posts on the topic

• Responsibility versus blame
• A model to rid your life of guilt and blame in favor of getting things done

• ← Habitualize it
• Stand Up For Passion →