Does your team use “blame” sentences? You know the ones that begin: "They did..."  or "They don't..."

They’re the sentences that cloud the issues and make it harder to get to the real problem. And subtly tear down teams over time.

I had a team awhile back that even though they were high functioning, they had a bad reputation. And “blame” sentences were plentiful. So every time someone used one I started to reply with, "There is no They there is only Us."  

There is no They there is only Us.  There is no Them, there is only We. 

I said it so much it became a bit of a joke. But it’s so easy to place blame when you say: 

• Well it wasn't me it was them. 

• They said… 

• They didn’t...  

• It’s their fault that... 

We wanted to create connections, so we had to replace the faceless nameless they, with us. Intentionally and consistently. It needed to be a constant reminder that they had names and faces and were the people we ate lunch with. They were also people with good intentions.

By reframing the dialogue the “blamer” would stop and remember that they were really us, which let us get to the problem we needed to solve quicker without hurt feelings. As a result:

• we were able to quickly differentiate between process issues and performance issues, then apply the right fix

• we changed the team’s reputation- yay!

• and we saw our team connections grow stronger

Using They allows us to distance and disassociate, it creates sides. 

• If it’s their problem, I don’t have to fix it.

By replacing it with Us or We, empathy and ownership gets applied to the situation. 

• When it’s our problem we are all responsible for fixing it. 

If life was a dream...  

In dreams every character represents an aspect of the dreamer. When a real life person appears in your dream we ask:

• what does the person represent to you? 

• and what does the action the person is taking represent to you?

Everyone in the dream is me, therefore it is "we."

The words “We” and "Us" actively apply empathy to a situation. We create community. We work toward the same goals.  It is because of "us" that "we" succeed. 

Beyond  work: We are a family. We are a team. We are a community. We are the human race. We are in this together.