It never ceases to amaze me how fast people can assign blame to others.  Throwing others under the bus can be a useful technique to avoiding consequences.  Not surprisingly though, tossing another under the bus is used frequently as an avoidance technique – not just to avoid blame or consequences.

Fictional Fred

The Fred of this posts title is totally fictional – the phrase has a nice ring though.  The point is when assigned blame it does not need to be real, you just need to make it stick elsewhere.  This is a very common and unfortunately, too often, an effective technique.

Acknowledge and Accept

It is my experience that clearly accepting responsibility for a fault or at least acknowledging the issue without blame or bypassing excuses is the most effective way to drive to resolution.

Ignoring the blame story or your excuses is a most natural reaction for the those to whom you are explaining yourself.  The fact is throwing others under the bus, deflecting the blame or making excuses just does not work effectively.  When you try it most people just hear “blah, blah, blah ……”  And ultimately you might not receive any consequences and could deflect the assignment of work but believe me you are not getting any confidence points.

I have never seen a positive reaction to the statement “it’s not my fault”.  Maybe some sympathetic lip service but the fact is most people don’t care.

Even if you are not directly responsible and there are reasonable and factual explanations acknowledging the issue and committing to work to resolve it is almost always the best approach.

And if that does not work, blame it on Fred.