It doesn’t lead to a diffusion of responsibility, the diffusion exists independently by nature of how a business operates.
A CEO will green light high level strategic direction, but the crimes described here could easily emerge from the implementation of that directive at lower levels of the company. “Plausible deniability”
It’s easier to blame thousands of people you just let go than to take accountability for your own poor performance as a leader. You don’t wake up one morning with 1500 extra people at a company without bad leadership.
That does not accurately model the world we live in. Responsibility is diffused to people across organisational boundaries, and victims are even conditioned to blame "the algorithm".
I think the idea behind no-blame culture is that a single person shouldn't be able to cause a massive incident on their own (assuming no malice), so finding a victim to put the blame on isn't helpful anyway. Also, if you start blaming people, everyone will go in permanent cover-my-ass-mode and this will usually just lead to some poor junior, who couldn't play the game yet, getting the full blow.
Of course, letting people run rampant and acting everything is fine is not great, but there's a good chance it might be an organizational problem and, if not, a HR problem (which is not necessarily related to a specific incident).
Personally, I would question the workplace environment and organizational structure that causes people to feel like they can't/shouldn't do something when they find a problem. But it is admittedly much easier to have the CEO come up with a snappy catchphrase to put the blame and responsibility of this situation back upon workers.
We don't have problems because there are issues management is failing to address. We have problems because you aren't doing enough.
In a small minority of accidents people are to blame though, usually those who are not learning and repeat the same mistakes over and over again, often due to over confidence.
Often it's coworkers who urge for action, if none taken will lead to the best people leaving - no good developers want to work with people who don't want to learn and progress forward.
You're not really engaging with the problem. Sure, one can take your condemnation to heart, and reject working for most corporations, just like an individual back in Nazi Germany should have avoided helping the Nazis. But the fact is that most people won't.
Since assigning blame harder won't actually prevent this "nobody's fault" emergent behavior from happening, the interesting/productive thing to do is forgo focusing on collective blame and analyze the workings of these systems regardless.
Ascribing blame for a company’s actions to its employees is questionable. They play a small role, for sure, but much more culpable are the shareholders and executives.
However, strong multi-taskers also tend to draw many people into their activities. When (resulting) failure calls for accountability, "everyone" was involved and the (perceived) blame quotient is not high enough for any individual to effect real change.
An anecdotal observation, but a general experience of mine in corporate life.
Sometimes, it's actually the "hero" who tackles a problem single-handedly, who fare worst. Because blame can easily be apportioned to him or her in great measure, whether deserved or not.
Isolation is often the kiss of death in such environments.
Just naming a 'staffer' though seems to already be a way to apportion blame to a segment of the employees, insulating management from what was done. Named or not doesn't really matter, clearly blame is being assigned.
This is probably the result of having a diffusion of responsibility. Essentially, a “not my problem” kind of attitude, especially with the company going bankrupt and all.
You have the burden of responsibility, because you take it. Many people in charge don't and will gladly blame others as much as they can, yet get away with it because some management don't wish for integrity, but need a watchdog.
>It's what there is no particular person to whom blame can obviously be assigned where the problem we're discussing comes to pass.
Actually, it's rather easy. The CEO collects the biggest paycheck, nail the responsibility to them. Greatest profits should come with the greatest risk.
When it’s a faceless mass of 100k employees…? Not so much.
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