Re:Show HN: I built the antithesis of Zoom. Add GIFs, sticke...
by rorykoehler on Wednesday January 06, 2021 @02:12PM
(#25661056)
Accountability and blame are two vastly different concepts. As an executive I’m accountable when my team messes up. Blame doesn’t even come into it.
Also, it is useful to talk about systemic problems that are much larger than what any individual can fix just by being extra diligent.
I see your point though, that something being nobody's fault can be just as damaging as spending an egregious amount of time trying to assign blame (the traditional way of things). My opinion is that responsibility, and being able to take some flak for when that ownership goes awry, should be conditioned like exercise. Taking none is like never exercising, and it's very unhealthy. Throwing 1000 pounds of weight on someone suddenly because of a pathological need for the group to have a scapegoat doesn't make that person better, though. It just crushes them and it's a net loss for the group. That weight and stress should be shared. We need to cultivate the real maturity to take and give some blame constructively, and recognize all extenuating factors, so that people neither get infantilized and helpless nor simply squashed because of a systemic problem that the group just doesn't want to address.