Guilty Until Proven Innocent | Episode 21“It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.”Voltaire The question that helps managers stop blaming others and focus on their own “contribution” to the existence of chronic problems in teams is, “How do I ‘help’ this problem to exist?”. However, in one training session, this question provoked a whole tsunami of anger and irritation in the managers I worked with. In principle, this issue has the effect of a healthy cold shower, but if a person does not want to run cold water on his own, this cold shower has the opposite effect - it can lead to painful results. So it was, in this case, with my cold shower. I flooded the managers with cold water without preparing them in advance for this experience. And, of course - the symptoms of a cold appeared instead of a cheerful refreshment. I then analyzed the situation and realized that people could not make sense of the word in quotation marks - how I was “helping” my problem to exist - because they saw it as a personal accusation that they were not doing their job. They took it that way because in reality, in their work, they receive daily accusations from their managers and clients that they are not doing their job properly. Nobody considers the things they do well. But they are regularly and daily bombarded with accusations they did something wrong. These managers work in an environment where they are guilty until proven otherwise. And they are trying their best to prove just the opposite. Even more so when an outsider “accuses” them of not doing something right. All their ammunition goes into explanations and accusations against some others who have not done their job and thanks to which they cannot do their job. Then, when people work in a “guilty until proven innocent” mode, all their energy will be focused on not making mistakes or defending themselves, instead of looking ahead and taking bold risks. The reasons for creating a culture in which everyone is guilty until proven innocent lie mainly in the tough childhood of the manager who manages the entire team.Book "Cold Shower for Managers: Empower and Inspire Your Team with Your Humility and Accountability " by Plamen Petrov on Amazon - https://amzn.to/2Ka23CU---Book "Park Your Ego: Face Your Bullsh*t and Own It" by Plamen Petrov on Amazon - https://amzn.to/38VW3He