Years ago when I was living in OK I was on our local school board. I remember one meeting when we returned from executive session (it sounds so important but in truth there were 3 of us!) we learned from the superintendent that we had potentially made a mistake. I can't remember the details but I think we had voted for something that could put us in jeopardy in the future.
I couldn't believe the next 30 minutes. There was so much energy in the room but it was all directed at finding blame. Who was at fault? I sat back in amazement as the others seemed to wear themselves out trying to recreate the moment that the bad decision was made; who said what, when did they say it, who agreed, who disagreed? It was a mess.
Finally I spoke up. I actually said that if we'd put half as much energy into solving the problem as we had into assessing blame that we'd actually be getting somewhere. Okay, we messed up. Now let's solve the problem!
Let's face it; finding blame is always easier than actually solving the problem. But finding the blame does nothing to get you out of the mess. In fact, it actually saps your energy for anything else. Yeah, you find fault but you ultimately you are still sitting there needing a solution.
Be bold enough to be the one in your family, staff, board, church, class, community, club who will redirect the energy toward problem solving instead of wallowing in "who done it."
P.S. I do think going back and taking a closer look at "how we got here" has value. But it's later. When enough time has passed to bleed the emotion out of the situation it's could be good to take a fresh look and figure out how to keep from repeating the problem again.
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