[00:00:00] Hi everyone, my name's Dex Randall, and this is the Burnout to Leadership podcast, where I teach professional men to recover from burnout and get back to passion and reward at work.

[00:00:22] Hello my podcast friends, this is Dex again and welcome to this week's episode on Blame. Which could be juicy, maybe a bit confronting, maddening, righteous, really a bit depends on your point of view. But knowing me, it'll probably just provide stress relief. And what I'm going to do today really is perhaps I can show you blame in a different light than you're used to, that helps you more proactively move forward if you're in a blame situation.

[00:00:55] And in all of this, if you're stuck in a blame cycle, I don't blame you a bit. Natural consequence of burnout, chronic stress, exhaustion, etc. If you're stuck in a blame cycle with someone else, please don't add self blame to the mix. It will not help.

[00:01:13] And really there's two possible blame stories, two main ones, apart from self blame. One is, if you're in burnout at work, you might be being blamed at work, justly or unjustly. Or, you might blame other people at work. Ditto. Let's unravel the whole mess because a lot of suffering is embroiled in judging, blaming, criticizing. A lot of unnecessary suffering.

[00:01:43] And it can become very deeply entrenched, divisive, discriminatory, dismissive, and a whole bunch of other boring adjectives that don't even begin with D. And by the way, I must be in a funny mood today. I don't know where I'm getting it from. Here I am anyway. I'm kind of direct on the podcast as you may have discovered.

[00:02:05] I really don't do it with any intention to harm and of course anything I say might not be right. I am trying to tell it like I see it in my experience working with people in burnout. And I'm perfectly okay with going against the grain because if we can't challenge the status quo, why would we make a podcast?

[00:02:28] So my contrarian views on how to recover from burnout, for example, done okay for my clients so far. And I might add, they do tend to restore a sense of humanity, connection, relationship, quality, and joy. Until somebody plows me over, I'm still going to keep going. And if you don't enjoy my views, I'm sorry about that.

[00:02:51] I guess you're going to vote with your ears and depart for other shores. And I wish you all the best.

[00:02:56] Still here? Now you're really wondering what I'm going to say, aren't you? Anyway, here's my view on blame. In burnout, most of us get upset some of the time, or all of the time, with how things are run at our workplace. I know I was. Whether that's justified or not, we generally have so little influence there as to make no difference.

[00:03:23] Often also, we're fed up with our boss. Aren't we? My hand's going up again. Likewise, we can't control our bosses. Wasting a whole lot of energy cussing and fighting, justifying, blaming, gossiping, retaliating, and so on. How much good is that going to do us? Are we winning? Generally not. If, on the other hand, we are being blamed for transgressions at work, and we're upset, and wasting energy protesting, trying to wriggle out of it, justifying, etc.

[00:03:58] How much good is that doing us? Probably not much. Also, I think it's worth considering if we're burning out, we're not on our best form, so is there a germ of truth in their blame of us? Have we performed a little bit less than our best, or have we behaved poorly? And no matter how hard it is for us to confront that idea, it's better to take that on and work with ourselves, and work with curing our burnout, than engage in conflict,

[00:04:32] and dig the trench of our suffering deeper. So really, generally speaking, the things that I recommend on the podcast are things that will help you feel better and perform better and enjoy your human life more. I don't usually bother with fighting too much because I haven't seen it, in general for people in burnout, create anything they wanted.

[00:04:54] Because when we embroil ourselves in conflict, it really consumes a great deal of emotion; energy we don't have; time; goodwill; engagement. In short, if we're burning out, engaging in conflict usually frazzles us even more. And to be clear, as ever, I don't want to exonerate institutions and people from their bad behavior. It would be wonderful, wouldn't it, if everyone was a model of human excellence, fairness, compassion, patience? That's never gonna happen. Each person will continue to be a model of a real human. Some admirable traits; some not so admirable; and a handful of downright undesirable. That's what it is to be human.

[00:05:41] People will be pulled to serve their own interests. That's how it is. Our internal experience of life and work is very strongly guided by our survival instincts. So we don't always recognize this. But it's also geed up variously by things like our ambition, our personal need for recognition, success, and power.

[00:06:05] And if we think about that influence over us and how we live, consider that self interest scaled up to a corporation or to a whole industry level. Then you've got capitalism and all the pressure that puts on a workforce. Then magnify that pressure down the chain of command in an organization. Each leader putting pressure on the level below them to help solve their own challenges.

[00:06:30] And then, what we come up with is this vice like squeeze on the producers at the bottom. And guess what? Most of the executives and professionals I work with are either technical experts, such as doctors, lawyers, consultants, accountants, academics, and so on. People in these high octane, practical skilled careers, they're the producers actually, and they're constrained by offering their skill for time.

[00:06:59] So it's either those, or leaders. C suite, team leaders, division leaders, sales leaders, production leaders, company owners, entrepreneurs. Mostly these people are technical experts promoted for their knowledge and expertise. And they're constrained most of the time by their management skills, which perhaps they've never really been taught, and their leadership skills ditto.

[00:07:22] Psychological safety really hasn't featured very much in their training. And then, they don't lead in a way that pleases themselves and perhaps others. And then we've got guilt about their leadership and performance layered on over the top of all their other problems. Not really surprising it ends up in burnout. And those leaders might have multiple levels of management underneath them, but then the buck stops again at the bottom with producers. And even though we have a lot of AI solutions these days being deployed in all areas of work, they're really, I think, yet to put very much of a dent in that equation that I've just presented in many sectors, that leak down of pressure and performance and the squeeze on results.

[00:08:11] Let's just say that is the case for now. Some approximation. If you're somewhere in your career, at that squeeze point, pushed to your edge, in or near burnout, feeling perhaps crushed, demoralized, worn out, pissed off. And if you can't control the system, or the boss, and they're blaming you, and you're blaming them, and blame isn't improving your situation, just losing you more morale and energy... what can you do?

[00:08:43] Let's have a look. As you may have heard me speak about in episode 132 of the podcast, I vote for developing psychological safety and taking extreme ownership of outcomes only because that's our best option for ourselves. Burnout recovery doesn't depend on being able to change the system.

[00:09:05] Thank goodness. And it also doesn't depend on quitting or changing jobs. It depends on you making the very best of your human life exactly as it is in the environment that it's happening in. So my suggestion in short would be ditch blame. There's no future in it. I can't recommend giving away control over your experience, your emotions, your well being to someone else.

[00:09:32] And that's what you're doing when you blame. You're saying you're responsible for me and what's happening for me. You're giving away your power. The other thing about blame is it incites hatred. Hatred is toxic to you, not the other party. If you have hatred inside you, you're the one with paralyzing negative thoughts filling your head;

[00:09:53] angry chemicals washing around your bloodstream; ruining your digestion, squeezing your liver. You're the one losing sleep. You're the one becoming stressed, angry, embittered, ruminating at work, arguing with your partner perhaps, or irritable with the kids. You're adding extra layers of pain by acting out, judging yourself, making whatever happened mean something awful about the human being you are, or perhaps the human being they are.

[00:10:26] Because let's say your boss calls you out for being rude to a client or a patient. Even if it's true, that doesn't have to define you. Maybe you're just worked to the bone, maybe you're stressed beyond capacity, then you feel bad about yourself. In your shame and frustration, you might start judging yourself quite viciously, as if you should know better.

[00:10:49] You get mad with everyone, including you. You feel uncared for, humiliated, dismissed probably. But if that's true, then who is the one dismissing you, and your power? It's you! You're giving it away to blame. To someone you know isn't going to look after you. And also, you're choosing to be a hater. Wasting your energy in negativity.

[00:11:16] Compromising your own ability to function well. Tarnishing work relationships. Basting in a stew of anxiety and pain. The other party, let's remember, is still completely unaffected by all of this. So when you're listening, is that what's happening for you? Because if it is, let's keep going. Let's take a bit of that power back.

[00:11:36] I'm not blaming you for any of that. It's what happens when our systems are exhausted and battered in burnout. We want everything to be perfect. And it's far from that. Not your fault. No blame, it's just an experience you're having. It's just really a glimpse into some parts of your situation that can be changed.

[00:12:01] And let's talk about in a minute how.

[00:12:03] As blame and hatred don't help you, in fact they're disempowering, and they don't represent your good nature, it's time to help yourself. Take back your emotions, Take care of them, work out how to have your own back. And if that sounds like an unappealing job, and one that you shouldn't even have to do, keep listening.

[00:12:26] I'm gonna perhaps give you a different perspective on that. So firstly, when a person does something towards you or about you that doesn't align with your values that you take offense to, It's okay in your mind to know that their action is their responsibility. Whether or not they see what they did as bad or wrong, they did it.

[00:12:52] The karma, if you like, is theirs. But your reaction to what they did is yours. It's your property. How you think about what they did creates an emotional response in you. If you think they're unspeakably evil, cruel, and wrong, you will suffer greatly. If you think they're unskilled, a bad leader, and got it wrong, you will suffer maybe a little bit less.

[00:13:24] If you think you were at fault, you will suffer, but in a completely different way, not through blaming and hating. It's likely to be directed inward. So it really all depends on your perspective and how you have trained yourself to respond in blame situations. And that's the key here really, training. If you are suffering very much in blameful situations, if they're escalating and your thoughts and emotions are escalating with them, you can actually just train yourself to be less reactive and less affected by what's happening outside of you in your environment.

[00:14:03] This is the good news part, right? So what can productively happen next for you, and within you, when you learn this new skill, is a clearing of your expectations of them to fix the situation, to fix your pain, or to clear your name, or whatever it is that you wish they would have done in the first place.

[00:14:24] If somebody has done something that you feel offended by, or upset by, they are not likely to change. Since they're an adult, you also can't control them. They're going to continue to do whatever they want, whatever serves their own interests. So really, it's better for you if you don't continue to react to them and what they did, and if you don't expect them to change.

[00:14:52] If your happiness is indexed into them changing, you're going to be out of luck, most likely. So detach. Choose to find compassion for yourself first. Worry about taking care of you. Don't worry so much about them. Let them work it out with their own karma. It's not that you won't take practical steps in this situation, but don't overemphasize your emotional engagement in blame and hatred, and justification, and gossip, and all of those things that heat up the situation.

[00:15:25] And if you blamed them, or they blamed you, or both, Can you perhaps see and acknowledge your contribution to that? Anything that you've done that you don't admire for yourself? Of course, we're not opening the door to self criticism here. So if, when you're asking yourself if you've contributed to the problem, if your answer is no, maybe just look a little bit more nuanced way.

[00:15:54] But if the answer is yes, and you hit yourself up with a bunch of self hatred, self abuse, this exaggerated internal condemnation. Please discard that straight away. This is not an opportunity to hurt yourself more. It's really just a moment where you may choose to face the simple facts of the situation and just see what your part in it was.

[00:16:18] Gently observe yourself as an outside observer and see what you did. Remember that you're human, perhaps overstressed, and if you did go a bit off piste, then just own it. Very carefully and gently own it. Then, as soon as you've done that, let go of any self blame that pops up. Just snip it, just go, okay, we're not going there.

[00:16:43] And have compassion for your shortcomings or your failures. Choose to forgive yourself and notice that you're being the aforementioned human who has many admirable acts that do not include whatever you've just done in this situation that you don't admire. But it's okay, you still have many admirable acts.

[00:17:04] We don't worry about the other person in this, they're gone. This is about you coming to terms with you and any lapses you may have made in thought, word, or deed. And then remember, okay maybe you did do something a bit off color. It's okay to be you. It's okay not to be perfect. It's okay to have behaved poorly.

[00:17:27] In burnout, it becomes really quite likely that sometimes you will lapse and behave in ways that you don't admire. That's what humans do when we're super exhausted, depleted, pushed to our edge. That's what happens. But just decide that whatever you've contributed to the situation, it's okay. Doesn't mean anything at all about who you are.

[00:17:48] It doesn't define you. Decide that you're not going to add any more missteps to this situation and you're not going to add more misery to your own situation with your self talk. Switch focus really away from other people too onto helping yourself out. So this is where you get to choose.

[00:18:09] I'm going to be kind to myself. I'm going to forgive myself. And I think about it really, in my mind's eye I see like an older grandparent speaking to a small child. So maybe you want to try this as an exercise. See or imagine yourself for a moment as a child in trouble, about to cop it. Scared, trying to escape.

[00:18:32] See that younger you in pain, probably wishing they hadn't done the thing that they're in trouble for. Wishing their parents weren't gonna find out. Your parents, right? And now, step into another being, become this older, wiser, gentler version of you. As if you were that kid's grandparent. Choose to see past the failure to the child in pain.

[00:18:58] If that troubled youngster was running at you right now, arms waving in distress. What would you do? Okay, in your mind, do that. In your mind, give that kid whatever they need. Let them know it's okay, you forgive them, you love them anyway. Because no life is unblemished. Adding blame and hatred to whatever has happened is really hitting the same wound with a fresh arrow.

[00:19:26] When you blame, or are blamed, and you feel a bit wrong footed, exposed, or hurt, or scared, Do you curse yourself for allowing yourself to feel vulnerable or for some real or imagined mistake? And if you do, does that help right now? In your lifetime, what has self criticism actually created? A lot of us in burnout tell ourselves that self criticism has a very protective function.

[00:19:55] It stops us doing dumb things. It teaches us to do better things, but that's not really my personal experience. And maybe, well see, has it been yours? Have you been self criticizing for a long time? And have you then become a flawless person? Or are you still human like the rest of us? Because I don't really think there's any avoidance of our human flaws.

[00:20:21] You've got yours, I've got mine. We're designed that way. And it's our path in this life to work with that. Not to abandon ourselves in disgust when we disappoint ourselves or other people. Long and short of it really is. I don't think you should waste your puff on blame or self blame. Be kind, because you've been whipping the donkey enough years.

[00:20:42] Ask yourself if it's producing the result you want. So really what we're aiming for here is in a blameful situation, separating yourself from what's happening in the outside world. And learning how to emotionally support yourself so that you don't feel awful. So that you're not in this tight loop of anxiety and fear and anger and irritation and frustration and self defense and all of that.

[00:21:06] Don't get stuck in that cycle because that cycle is making you feel probably a great deal worse than you need to and it's prolonging the agony a lot more and it's probably entrenching the positions. of mutual distrust between you and whoever the other parties are. So it doesn't very often have a productive result.

[00:21:26] When you're back at the helm of you, when you've owned your part in it, when you've stood up and taken care of yourself, taken care of the wound and the hurt in you, and you got back on deck, and you're feeling resilient again, then you're in a much, much better position to take a pragmatic way forward in solving whatever the actual problem is, out in the world.

[00:21:49] Do it when you've got to that place. Don't do it from a position of fear and anxiety and upset, because that tends to be when we compound the problem, particularly if we're already in a very highly anxious and stressed state, in or near burnout. So get yourself back on deck, be kind to yourself, be good to yourself, bring up your emotional security inside of you.

[00:22:13] Accept yourself. And then you will probably find that you're feeling more neutral about the situation, whatever it is, and it will in fact be easier to deal with in a calm and rational manner without inflaming the situation further. But at no point can you expect the other person to change their behavior.

[00:22:34] It's highly unlikely to happen, particularly if conflict has already been engaged in. So take care of yourself. That would be my suggestion. And if you are in burnout, blame is one of the things that I help my clients to move past. Because it's so injurious and hurtful. And it's so pervasive once we get it into our system. Burnout recovery really, is about pain reduction, first of all, and then it's about restoring your energy, power, love, performance, connection, and joy. So I suggest you don't waste any more of your precious life in burnout. Come and talk to me quick, smart, and let's make a plan for your recovery. You can book an appointment at DexRandall. com. And if you enjoyed this episode, please help me reach more people in burnout by sharing the podcast with your friends. If you struggle with blame, you're quite welcome to text me via the link in the show notes, it comes straight to me. Thank you all for listening today and I wish you the best, always.