In the post-COVID era, people have become more sensitive. They are more easily getting distracted, feeling hurt, and even making extreme decisions for change. With the move forward after 2020, leaders struggle to find talent and keep the piece in the office and the team.
Discussions about motivation and engagement have become the norm. More often, people started using the phrase “I feel demotivated” for everything that differed from their expectations.
I do not defend employers and leaders in this situation, but what I see as a part of a company and a freelance consultant is that the modern workplace has turned into an arena where employees perfect the “blame game.” With the feeling that they have power because of the talent shortage, many employees have turned a dialogue into a one-way winning street for them. In situations where the Blame did not work, many of those using that approach have started directly confronting the leadership teams and threatening to leave the company. Some leaders have tried to find balance; others just left those threatening to quit doing so, while a third of the leaders have accepted that they are in the Loser role and have given up in front of the demands. Two years after the COVID crisis and the shift in mindset and roles, leaders have realized that what happened has changed people’s expectations and threatened the company’s efficiency, productivity, and success. Most of those demanding to do things only in their way and acting aggressively toward the attempts for change and normalization were too extreme and, at the same time, too weak to understand how this imbalanced behavior pushed companies to their limits.
And then it happened. The turn was on the go, starting with the largest companies in the IT world fighting back. Some acted carefully initially, while other leadership teams made disruptive decisions to accept the consequences and pay the price but turned that negative trend into a balanced relationship again.
Alphabet and Microsoft were precise in their answers to people’s demands. Amazon and Tesla ordered their people back into the office, announcing they were ready to pay the price of quitting people, but this price would be lower than the current situation.
There was one acquisition in 2023 of a well-known company that turned their free practices with the head down. I will talk about the acquisition of VM Ware from Broadcom Inc.
Broadcom leadership came with a clear message that they will not tolerate the practices created for VM Ware employees and will do what is necessary to restore the equity and the balance between employees’ demands and the company agenda. They even let almost 30 % of VM Ware employees reorganize the business and the people agenda so that the second can serve the first.
While this is only one of the extreme examples, many companies and leadership teams have started searching for how to rebalance the workplace relationship and agenda created between 2020 and 2023 to find the balance. This action plan led to more dissatisfaction and dysfunction in the workplace, filled with anger and acting more emotionally instead of searching for logic and discussion.
Learning to get what they wanted with threats and yelling, people shockingly understood that this was not the agenda anymore. And with the shock of what they have learned, the actions from their side became chaotic, more emotionally weighted. Some attempted to change, while others just said, “I Quit,” and moved forward. At first, leaders were shocked to lose those they had put effort into carrying on during the hard times. Still, organizations and leadership teams adapted after a while and started accepting emotionality as the new normal.
The first stage of that emotionality made people think about their power and how they could turn organizational resources to serve them. But after the adaptation was finished and the leadership team learned how to deal with the “new behavioral models,” some of those relying on these models loomed again to lose what they had fought so eagerly for in the last two years.
The negativity and disengagement levels grew, and people started building their communities of unhappy creatures to restructure the strategy of re-occupying organizational resources and leadership attention.
The internal dissatisfaction led to a transformational strategy from people who were not happy. They moved from being angry to planning the organization’s exit for themselves. The push for change from people’s side has turned from fighting to working in silos and trying to remodel others’ behavior so that organizations and leadership teams struggle more before the person leaves with the feeling of making the organization and their leadership team feel if they have become losers in the game.
Now, I am waiting for people reading this to start accusing me of making it look too darker than it is. Unfortunately, if we look carefully at what is happening, we will see this is the sad truth. The new weapon in the long and painful quitting process has become the Blame. Blaming has become a norm for everything, from not having free food at the office to missing processes and even not caring for people because organizations have set some work norms. “Free expression of feelings,” people called it. Still, it has turned out to be a willingness to make the organization serve its purpose instead of adapting to help it grow. And that became a straight norm within the roles of blue and most white collars.
While quitting will not stop, the Blame should be taken seriously if the balance in the team is to be maintained. Leaders play a crucial role in this and must follow a specific agenda, “fighting gently, but hard enough” with the Blame. Here are some steps in this direction.
Identifying based on longevity
Sometimes, people have an episode where they need to relieve the pressure. Different approaches may arise for this, but blaming everything and everyone is one of them. Following the pattern and looking at historical data on such behavior helps leaders identify the impact that behavior makes. Episodic blaming behavior may be standard, while a pattern built within the time can be severe things to consider.
Define the level of impact.
An essential element to define is how deeply the blaming has disrupted the environment. Some of the negative talk people make is not harmful. People may even take it with some humor. But the more negative and profound the talk becomes, and the more recognizable and valued as an opinionmaker the person talking is, the deeper and stronger the impact may be. The team leader must identify the depth of the talk to adjust the raw strategy toward it and create positive answers within a shorter time and with less damage to balance in the team.
Talk directly with the blamer.
A mistake often made by leaders is that they talk in general. Identifying disruptive behavior requires talking directly about it. The more specific and direct the feedback, the stronger the impact is on this behavior and talk. Direct communication and feedback support the change, while general talk leaves space for interpretation and upgrading the blaming talk.
React consistently and lead by the written standards.
Written standards are something we tend to forget when having challenging situations. Most leaders rely on emotions, unwritten standards they have created, and models that are just OK when the relationship has been balanced and positive. However, when the only thing a person blaming others cares about is how to create discrepancy, these unwritten rules and standards do not work. For the leader, the best way to react is to rely on what everyone sees as a standard and turn the unwillingness to respond to a structured process with clear steps for the blaming person. On the other hand, relying on written standards that are well-known by different people creates a sense of equity among people. There are no different approaches and no double standards; cred is just a reaction to the person’s blaming behavior. The other crucial element in such a moment is consistency. People tend to see all the details and become sensitive when the standards are poor for one and disturbing for others. Consistency in showing commitment to the standards, no matter the leadership layer or the person-specific status, lowers the level of insecurity and increases internal commitment.
Do not step down.
The first level is implementing actions consistently without compromising, but moving time forward with the same approach is crucial. The more evident it is to the people in the team as a standard, the easier it is to put meaning into what the leader does in different situations. Making one step and then moving down shows inconsistency and weakens the leader’s impact when dealing with the blaming person.
Clear the Blame with all necessary actions and tools but in a moral way.
No matter what happens or the reactions of the blaming person aiming to leave the team to escalate, the leader sets the standards. The more the leader relies on emotions, the lower the positive impact of dealing with Blame is. That is why the leader’s choice should evolve based on the agenda that creates a positive outcome for the team after the blaming person is separated from the company. Mostly, leaders are quiet when this process arises, and the blaming person has the power to explain situations. Doing that creates wrong impressions for those looking at the situation from a side.
Define where the breakpoint is.
Based on ethical behavior, people may think that continuously doing what is moral and written standards is enough. In some situations, this may work well, while in others, it is not always enough, no matter what the leader does. So, for the balance to be maintained, the leader should be sure of the point of no return. With this virtual point, there will be a limit of action and efforts to prove that everything acceptable was done before moving to more extreme actions. The more precise this point in time and form, the better the leader manages the blaming person’s behavior. Suppose there is an exception every time something happens, and the next chance for change is knocking on the door whenever the blaming person reaches the limit. In that case, the process creates toxic workplace destructive behavior in all relationships and the balance created in work.
Recognize and accept the breaking point and do what must be done.
In some extreme situations, the blaming behavior may cause more distress than the team and the leader can handle. Defining what that means must be connected to a precise series of actions to restore balance. Sometimes, it may mean separating the blaming person from taking necessary actions. In other situations, it may mean only talking about it with the person and calming the situation. But no matter what caused the intoxication in the team, the Blame as a factor must be struck down with a clear strategy and logical steps that rely on real examples and defined and communicated internal standards – behavioral, performance, or ethical. The more precise the moment of break is recognized, the more impactful the action agenda will be. So, what must be done will be defined by the leader as the most suitable set of action steps to rebalance the team and remove the behavior that causes distress.
IN CONCLUSION:
What a blaming person can do to the team may cause more disturbance than the team can handle. Learning how to deal with this person and their behavior is a beneficial way of keeping the team’s balance and morale. The leader’s role is crucial as a creator of balance and peace. The faster this happens, the more balanced the team becomes and the more secure and comfortable the environment is built around.
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