Placing blame is a pretty natural reaction.
If something goes wrong, we can’t fix anything or make it better if we don’t know what caused things to go wrong in the first place. But, if we place that blame on the wrong person, the wrong activity, the wrong variable, it ends up being an exercise in futility.
So, how can we use blame effectively and identify the true cause of some of the problems we face in disaster and climate preparedness and response?
First things first, it might be helpful to clarify what we mean by blame. According to a Psychology Today article:
“Blaming is […] a strategy (albeit usually unconscious) to keep from having to make changes or address your actual reality. As long as the problem is someone else’s fault, you can stay busy and focused on trying to correct the blame – that is, fix that person or situation that is at fault. As a result, you turn your back not only on your actual experience of the situation, but what you might need to do […]”
In this article, the author is specifically talking about individual people and what blame looks like in interpersonal relationships. We are going to expand this context to include what blame looks like on an institutional, agency, and organizational level – because that’s where it fits into the disaster and climate change sphere.
Those fighting back against the protests for systemic change in policing and the justice system as a whole are arguing that police, overall, are good and that those committing these terrible acts of police brutality are just “bad apples” giving the rest of the police force a bad name.
This is a situation of misplaced blame – not because the individuals who commit these heinous acts are not bad, but because these “bad apples” are the result of a poorly pruned tree, being fed contaminated water, and being deprived of sunlight, in an orchard of other problems. Police and their actions are not simply individuals, but also the result of the system that has trained and created them.
Yes, individuals are to blame for their actions. However, if we follow the simplistic “bad apple” argument, the solution would be nothing more than to remove those particular police officers from the force – voilá, problem solved!
Unfortunately, this problem, like many others, is not so easy to solve.
Due to the racist nature of the system in which the police operate, along with increased militarization and decreased liability, violence and force are encouraged and celebrated without consequence – removing a few bad officers does nothing for you. Even officers that feel they treat everyone equally are operating in a system that is inherently un-equitable, so “equal” treatment still causes harm and reinforces the above issues. What you need is system-wide and multi-system change.
These systems also skirt blame by scapegoating: when an individual or organization with power is to blame they try to shift that blame elsewhere so as not to look bad/lose their job/lose confidence or funding.
If we bring this nuance into a disaster and emergency context, things can get even more complicated. There are a lot of moving parts and different levels of responsibility within the preparedness and response realm, and it is practically impossible to draw a single straight line from one problem or failure to one person, agency, or organization.
For example, in this week’s podcast episode, Alex discussed the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS), and who was to blame for local and state governments not getting/having access to adequate resources during the first stages of the coronavirus outbreak. The reality is, it wasn’t just Trump and the federal government. Disaster response is a local responsibility first and foremost in the United States, and the reality is that state and local governments had been scaling back preparedness and supply efforts for years prior to Covid-19.
Does that mean Trump and the federal government are absolved of all blame or fault? Absolutely not.
What it does mean is that if we focus only on Trump and the federal government and their failings, we are missing a learning opportunity when it comes to the other pieces of this overall system that did not function the way they should have.
So, how do we identify what or who is at fault if something goes wrong? And how do we refrain from shifting the blame from ourselves and our own organizations to others?
Surprisingly enough, the answers to both questions go hand-in-hand.
- Be self-aware, avoid the temptation to place blame quickly without much thought or time to process. If there is someone or something you want to blame immediately, give yourself a minute to think things through. Perhaps that person or thing did have a hand in screwing the situation up, but is that the whole picture?
In our example about the SNS, this would mean taking a deep breath and not going with your initial gut instinct to blame Trump for everything that goes wrong (it was definitely mine, I’m not going to lie) – just because it is likely, does not mean it’s the only option. - Understand the complex preparedness and response systems (or whatever systems you’re critiquing). Remember, as mentioned in previous posts and podcast episodes, the disaster and emergency preparedness and response systems in the US are a complex web of organizations, authorities, and actors reaching from the very local to the national levels, with a whole mess in between (which you can read all about in one of our earlier posts). If you don’t have a comprehensive understanding of the system, you can’t identify which part of it (or who) failed, whether due to inaction or poor planning or something else.
For the SNS example – do your research on the subject to figure out if the federal government being run by a human-sized Cheeto caused the disaster supply system to fail, or if there is a greater set of circumstances (of which the Cheeto is a complicating and infuriating factor) by reading up on the organizations, institutions, and agencies involved that together allowed this system to fail. - Don’t use blame to criticize unnecessarily – offer constructive feedback, and frame it in an engaging, not alienating, way. It helps no one when you simply tell someone they screwed up or they are bad at their job. Feedback should be straightforward, but remember that it also needs to be actionable (the person you are providing feedback to needs to be able to do something about it) and specific (vagueness is not your friend). Basically, pointing out the problem is helpful only to a very minimal extent if you don’t offer ideas and solutions that could make things better.
So, if you want to address Cheeto-in-Chief, you can’t just say, “You did a terrible job and really mucked up this COVID response thing.” Firstly, you can’t expect someone to respond well if you address them as a giant unhealthy cheese snack, or engage in other forms of alienation or identity challenges—no matter how much you may want to, it won’t change their behavior or prompt reflection, even if it is true. So perhaps go with something more along the lines of, “Mr. Trump, here is some information on how federal and state governments are meant to function together to address public health emergencies, let’s talk through how this could look in the future using a tool like the SNS because our most recent supply effort was not effective.” - Avoid blame for blame’s sake, use it to foster learning and growth. Throwing blame around just because you can or because you want to avoid the responsibility falling on you or your organization tends to be ineffective and provides little greater utility or benefit. If you are going to place blame, do it to improve preparedness and response, to provide a collective positive rather than a singular negative.
In the case of the SNS and emergency supply systems, this should follow along with number 1 – avoid the temptation to blame our president just because he is so very easy to despise (see how I am avoiding name-calling in an attempt to facilitate conversation and address the issue in a less-biased manner?), and approach the problem in a way that will help improve future preparedness and response. Offer ways the president can help improve existing systems or suggest alternatives rather than focusing only on what went wrong. - Focus on what is controllable. There are a number of factors and variables in disasters and emergencies that no one can foresee, and one or more of those could be partially to blame for what went wrong with your current situation. However, you cannot do anything about those factors or variables, so focusing time and energy on them is going to be counterproductive. Instead, focus on the variables and factors that you can control, find where those went wrong, and work from there.
Within the context of our example, this could be something like the actions of other countries or, my favorite example, Trump’s social media decisions – the average emergency manager cannot ban a certain individual from starting bombastic, unhelpful Twitter conversations that confuse the supply situation. However, that emergency manager could spend time and energy getting helpful, factual information to their jurisdiction to help minimize the damage done and the misinformation shared.
Note: Most of the time, there will not be an easy, singular entity to point to and say, “that is the problem.” Apportioning culpability and responsibility will take time, and you might get it wrong the first time – if you do, don’t pretend you didn’t and skulk off into the sunset! It is totally okay to be wrong, especially when systems are as strangely intertwined and convoluted as our disaster preparedness and response structures. Take a deep breath, take responsibility for being wrong, and continue working to find the real solution – otherwise, nothing gets better.
