Last week I was with my family at a pizzeria for dinner. When our order arrived, my pizza was not there. Five minutes later my food had still not arrived so I calmly asked the waitress where it was.
“It’s coming” she replied.
A further 5 minutes passed by which time everyone was half way through their meal and it was clear they had forgotten my pizza. I called the waitress over and this time, quite annoyed, made my point to which she replied
“It’s not my fault!”
I’m sure that parts of this story are familiar to you. The last sentence however triggered the psychologist in me.
“You’re part of a team” I replied “you need to take responsibility not pass the blame to others!”
The principle of Cause and Effect is a personal empowerment concept taught in NLP. It states that we are at ‘Cause’ when we take responsibility for our outcomes (the bad as well as the good) and, when we are at ‘Effect’ we blame others and have a reason why things happened. That reason is either outside of our control or because of someone else, so when we are at effect we “externalise failure” to make ourselves feel better.
The problem with this approach is that it disempowers us. When we externalise failure we leave it for others to decide our destiny by giving up control.
In the short term we feel better because we pass on the blame for things that happen to us which we don’t like. In the long term however, we are the one who ultimately suffer as the same issues keep repeating themselves because we have never taken responsibility for them. We never learn from our mistakes.
For anyone with young children you will be familiar with this scenario. Young children are not emotionally mature enough to accept blame and fear the consequences, so they will habitually blame others. There is no point of self-reflection to analyse why things happened as they did, and therefore no learning.
As adults however, this approach does not serve us well. We should always analyse our part in an outcome so that we can learn from it and make better future decisions. This empowers us.
Let’s now bring this back to our waitress. My analysis of Cause and Effect may seem dramatic, a mountain out of a molehill. However, this is where it starts. When we develop a habit of passing the buck or blaming others on small matters, it’s very easy to escalate it to larger, more consequential issues. That feeling of having ‘dodged’ taking responsibility and having to deal with the consequences can become addictive with all the negative implications discussed above.
Wouldn’t it have been easier for her to say “I’m sorry about that Sir, let me check with the kitchen”?
When you hear someone you care about saying something that indicates they are at effect, find the opportunity to discuss it with them. If you’re not sure how to do that, share this blog. Helping someone to move from effect to cause is to empower them, and that is one of the biggest gifts you can give to another person.
*** I have recently started an Instagram account called “softskillsexpert” where I post short form videos, quick tips, useful quotations and other items if use related to soft skills. Please follow me on the following link! https://instagram.com/softskillsexpert?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
If you found this blog useful, please click ‘like’ below and forward to friends and colleagues to subscribe. If you disagree or have anything to add, please comment!
To catch up on previous blogs and make sure you’re not missing out on some great insights, check out the archives here.