The Blame Game: How the Hidden Rules of Credit and Blame Determine Our Success or Failure
Dattner and Dahl explore the critical issue of how credit and blame are allocated in an organization. Blaming the wrong people at the wrong time not only can lead to frustration, anger, and ultimately disengagement from the tasks at hand but also can cause individuals not to speak up and take the right action when they should, for fear of retribution. This includes allocation of credit where it is not deserved. In our current difficult, uncertain economy,  collaboration and new approaches are critical for success, and the mishandling of credit and blame can devastate the workplace. This is a handbook for CEOs and other leaders as they create cultures in which the dynamics of credit and blame either dramatically enhance organizational learning or they tragically constrain it. It also aims to help the reader avoid the trap of falling into the blame game personally by successfully engaging with credit grabbers and finger pointers in the workplace. An excellent, thought-provoking book; a must read. --Mary Whaley