Speaker For The Diodes - August 17th, 2010

05:24 am - QotD

"There is a fine line between issuing blame and holding people accountable. When people do things that cause harm we should expect them to undo the damage. That's not blame; that's holding people to their obligations. When a coworker missed an important deadline last week that affected my ability to get my own work done on time, I think it was reasonable for me to press him to clean up some of the resulting mess. When I was involved in an accident years ago that was my fault, it was completely reasonable for the other driver to expect compensation. That's accountability, and it's an important principle. There's nothing wrong with this.

"Blame is different. I can hold my coworker to what he was supposed to do, but I shouldn't send out email to the whole company dressing him down no matter how tempted I am and how justified I feel. The other driver can hold me accountable for damage but -- if there's no evidence I did it maliciously or recklessly -- shouldn't start a whispering campaign among my neighbors about what a bad person I am. Accountability is about the act; blame is about the person. We hold people to actions but we don't attack them personally."

-- cellio, 2010-07-25