Avoiding the Blame Game with International Teams

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Communications Management   Talent Management   Teams  

I’m sure many of you have been told as you went on vacation, “You realize everything that goes wrong next week will be your fault, right?” The joke is that as soon as you aren’t there to defend yourself, you’ll be blamed for everything that goes wrong. It’s a lighthearted comment made between colleagues, but like so many other such comments, it’s rooted in the truth.

That’s often the problem that exists with global teams, especially if there is little overlap between different elements of those teams—and it’s what I want to explore in this article. Effective teams need to be able to work together, ensuring that all team members are pulling in the same direction. That’s fairly easy when things are going well, but much harder if things start to go wrong.

When problems occur, there must only be a focus on fixing the current issues and preventing them recurring. If there is any sense of assigning blame or fault to different elements of the team, the unity that is so important is significantly undermined. When global team structures prevent team members from defending themselves or correcting misunderstandings because they are in a different location and a different time zone, the problems can easily fester—irreparably damaging the team and eliminating any chance of project success.

Prevention is better…

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