The Wrong Epic Fail
I must have missed this bug… I made this fatal commit to the production branch… The rollback haven’t saved the release… Growth metrics are 50% less than expected…
That’s how approximately the hierarchy of epic fails might be lined up in any given tech organization. On each and every level, people would experience their own mini epic fails, if the fail is perceived as such at the top of the organizational pyramid, starting the vortex of blame that rolls back to the bottom. The fail mentality then grows into the roadblocks that stand in the way of major goals and make people approach organizational challenges not with the mindset of accomplishing things, but with something like this: “It must be my personal epic fail. I’m to blame. But.. it’s not only me. That’s how things are tied up. Anyway, how do I personally cope with it? How do I excuse myself, how do I push this blame vortex away somewhere?” Once this thinking sets in, it means doom.
The truth is, those mini epic fails are the wrong ones. The real epic fail would occur if people on all those levels were incompetent at what they do, and hence shouldn’t have been hired at all. It’s someone’s job to set meaningful goals for competent employees and hold them accountable for results as opposed to the false goal of making them feel it’s their epic fail. Does it make sense at all to set on figuring out where the single point of epic fail is? The chain of the mini epic fails starts building up if/when anyone who’s a higher up has not enough space inside of them to process the alleged epic fail, and instinctively looks to turn it reverse, into the outward direction. Then the ball might be kicked endlessly.
If/when this happens, the instant remedy is to say to yourself: “Stop right there, and fix the mindset that sends you on the fail kicking track”. If someone were to measure the energy, time and effort that people invest into proving others responsible for the fails and/or defending themselves from such accusations, it would probably be enough to set the world on fire! And, if such huge amounts of energy are channeled the wrong way, which resources, emotional and physical, would be left for the meaningful activities that are outside the fail game loop? Fixing the fail game mindset might not be an easy task, if you happen to be with an organization that has a tendency to wallow in the blame shifting and finger pointing. But it is always in our power to be the agents of change, no matter where we stand. Someone in the position of leadership — or in a managerial position —has a better chance of setting a positive example here. If a leader/manager approaches the matter from the non-judgmental perspective, they will want to make it known to everyone in the team that whatever happens, whatever the fail, no one is going to be a patsy. The truth is, quite often it might not even be feasible to objectively identify who exactly has to be responsible for the perceived epic fail, and if that’s the case, then why create the ripples at all, in the first place? Even from the purely pragmatic standpoint, the fail game culture would eventually cost more, than the culture of non-judgmental cooperation. People are happier — and more productive — when they feel safe, and if they are certain that their team provides acceptance and support under any circumstances, there’s nothing on this Earth that would be impossible for them to accomplish.
