Stop Blaming others and start spreading the Gift of Appreciation
A simple strategy for improving the quality of your workplace relationships
At the workplace, many of us behave like the typical neighborhood aunty. Slightly grumpy, usually unhappy and always finding faults in others.
As a Product Manager, I can recall multiple occasions where I demonstrated this behaviour.
Project not delivered the time. I blamed engineering.
Design was not intuitive. I blamed design.
Feature didn’t see adoption. I blamed marketing.
When things went wrong, my instinct was to find a scapegoat and blame them.
But when things went right? What happened?
Did I appreciate my colleagues?
Nah. Weren’t they just doing their job? Why would you appreciate someone just for doing their job?
Turns out, I was completely wrong in my understanding. And it took me almost a year to figure it out.
In the subsequent paragraphs, we will discuss why this ‘blame trap’ is a pathetic way to work. And what you can do to come out of it.
The perils of getting stuck in the ‘Blame Trap’
It blinds you to your faults. Blaming others makes you ignorant about your own shortcomings. You fail to course correct as you don’t acknowledge that you might be the reason things aren’t going well.
Example: I used to blame engineering whenever a feature release got delayed. Only later did I understand that these delays often happened due to corner cases not being documented properly by me in the PRD.Leads to poor relationships — If you are constantly blaming others, you will be unable to build camaraderie with your colleagues. And chances of succeeding at the workplace are bleak unless you can collaborate well with others.
“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity.” — Dale Carnegie
Gives rise to a toxic workplace — A culture where blaming others takes higher precedence over retrospecting to find improvements is a terrible place to work at. Do you really want to be the person who creates a toxic work culture for others?
“When blame-shifting infiltrates an organization, it can become toxic. It erodes collaboration and trust and causes everyone to waste energy in the attempt to avoid being left without a chair when the music stops.” — Todd Henry
Time to change: Blaming to Appreciating
Old habits die hard. Transitioning from the blame mindset to the appreciate mindset is not easy. But it’s important and necessary.
As someone who has made this transition, I want to share the practice that has helped me make this tectonic shift.
I call this practice — ‘Giving the Gift of Appreciation’ .
Appreciation means telling others that how much you value them and their contributions.
When you give the gift of appreciation to someone, you show that you care for them.
The upside of appreciating others is immense. Personally, I have observed the following benefits:
It brings a tectonic shift in your attitude — When you start appreciating your colleagues, you will see the many things they are good at. Rather than looking to blame them, you start seeking ways to collaborate with them and identify ways to become better.
You become more likeable — A little likeability at the workplace never hurts. People will be willing to go the extra mile for you when you need them.
It’s contagious — Once you start practicing appreciating others, you will notice others also following suit.
The smile your appreciation brings on someone’s face is priceless!
Most importantly, appreciation is the right thing to do. It injects a dose of humanity into the increasingly transactional nature of relationships.
What to Appreciate Your Colleagues for
To appreciate your colleagues, you don’t have to wait for grand accomplishments or special occasions.
Major milestones and big feature releases are often far and few. You shouldn’t wait for these to appreciate others.
Praising others for their simple acts is often the most delightful.
I have appreciated my colleagues for:
Handling a customer query brilliantly
Coming well prepared for a meeting
Managing multiple things simultaneously
Offering a thoughtful product suggestion
Bottomline: Make appreciation a standard practice at your workplace.
How to Appreciate Your Colleagues
I have adopted a simple principle to keep the engine of appreciation moving: Every Week, find atleast one person across your organization to appreciate.
When I notice that someone did something diligently, I quickly craft a personalized message for them. Depending on their team, I post it on the appropriate slack channel.
Rarely does a week go by where I don’t find anything worth appreciating. This has been a crucial learning for me — When you search for the good, you tend to find it in abundance.
The best part is that I don’t even have to sit and think about who should I praise. Ideas around who to praise and for what reason keep on popping into my head in the most unexpected times!
Here are a few more things I have learned about appreciating others:
Be specific: A generic “Good Job Rohan!” won’t be as effective as “Hey Rohan, Thank you for handling that customer call brilliantly! You saved us from a potential churn.”
“Thank the person, tell them why you are thanking them, and tell them how you or the product or the company or anyone benefited from what they did.” — Jeff Lash
Don’t be phony: Quote a genuine instance where you were impressed by the person’s action or work.
Praise in public: A good thumb rule to follow is to praise in public and criticize in private.
“When you share specifically what was great and why it was great publicly, not only does it have more meaning for the person being praised, it helps the whole team learn something new.” — Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor
Summary
Blaming others is easy. But it’s neither conducive to professional nor personal growth. To get out of this trap, you need to flip your attitude — from the blamer to the appreciator. Appreciating others means telling them how much you value them and their contributions. You can start by appreciating others for the simplest of things.
Concluding Thoughts
In an environment where everybody wants to grow fast, its easy to see others as stumbling blocks in your goals. Especially, when you are starting out, it is easier to fall into this trip. You blame others for your failures but don’t appreciate them when things go right.
If this sounds like a familiar pattern , its time to change. Trust me, the faster you change the better it is for your career growth.
It doesn’t take much to get started. You just need to find one person to thank.
So, what are you waiting for?
Go ahead and make someone’s day!
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Acknowledging others in areas they are trying to develop also creates a space for them to step up into more!