Have you ever been in a meeting and felt the blame being pushed onto you for some mistake? That habit of pointing fingers has a name: blame culture (blame culture).
You're in a meeting with the whole team. One of the company's executives has been rambling for more than 20 minutes about what might be going on with sales. And during those 20 minutes you have a deja vu: you've lived this before. Last week's meeting, the one before, the one before that, the one before that... And you know that after this monologue comes the usual line: "Clearly we have a problem, and that problem belongs to... (insert any department here)." The problem is always someone else's.
The worrying thing isn't that a different department gets pointed at every week, the worrying thing is that someone gets pointed at every week. This is called blame culture. It appears in organizations where the immediate response to a mistake is to look for a culprit. There is no room or time to analyze the process or the system, to understand the root cause of the error and learn from it.
This leads to a huge lack of trust: nobody can make a mistake without being punished and ridiculed. Without mistakes there is no innovation or learning; on the contrary, fear will end up settling into the atmosphere. There will be no transparency, communication, or collaboration out of fear of error.
If we add to this that the finger-pointing happens in meetings with more people present, fear of error grows even more, since the person or people singled out will end up feeling like they're in a witch hunt. And there won't only be fear; there will also be anger, resentment, and a self-esteem that keeps sinking. In an environment like that, growth will be hard, not only individual but collective.
And although when we talk about these kinds of problems, it seems we're referring to evil bosses or bad people, it doesn't have to be that way. They may be people accustomed to this kind of culture, people who don't know how to face crises or take responsibility, people who are simply paralyzed by the problem. They are not villains (at least, not always). That said, each person's circumstances only explain, they don't justify.
So, beyond understanding the context of the person doing the blaming (if only to make ourselves feel a little better), what should we do in these situations?
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5 Feb 2026 11:11Change organization.
Cambiar organización.
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Jorge Sánchez López ★★★
6 Feb 2026 09:25Good post, very recognizable for anyone who has sat through meetings where the problem is always "someone else's."
Blame culture isn't sustained only by bad intentions, but because the system makes blaming safer than learning.
From Scrum / facilitators, the challenge is not to normalize it: when ceremonies talk about people rather than processes, and when we avoid intervening so the meeting doesn't "get complicated," the pattern is reinforced, even if unintentionally.
From management, the focus shouldn't be on correcting isolated behaviors, but on reviewing which incentives, metrics, and conversation styles are penalizing mistakes and rewarding defensiveness. Without psychological safety there is no learning, only protection.
👉 Uncomfortable question for both sides:
In your meetings, is it safer to admit one's own mistake… or to point the finger at another team?
That's usually where the real answer lies.
Buen post, muy reconocible para cualquiera que haya vivido reuniones donde el problema “siempre es de otro”.
La cultura de la culpa no se mantiene solo por malas intenciones, sino porque el sistema hace más seguro culpar que aprender.
Desde Scrum / facilitadores, el reto es no normalizarlo: cuando en las ceremonias se habla de personas y no de procesos, cuando se evita intervenir para que la reunión “no se complique”, el patrón se refuerza, aunque sea sin querer.
Desde dirección, el foco no debería estar en corregir comportamientos aislados, sino en revisar qué incentivos, métricas y estilos de conversación están penalizando el error y premiando la defensa. Sin seguridad psicológica no hay aprendizaje, solo protección.
👉 Pregunta incómoda para ambos lados:
¿En vuestras reuniones es más seguro reconocer un error propio… o señalar a otro equipo?
Ahí suele estar la respuesta real.
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Marta Berné ★★
6 Feb 2026 09:44Good question, Jorge. Although toxic positivity or theater usually go hand in hand with a culture of blame, so in that kind of culture, that question will probably be answered with a lie.
Buena pregunta, Jorge. Aunque con la cultura de la culpa suele ir el positivismo tóxico o el teatro, así que esa pregunta en un tipo de cultura así probablemente se responda con una mentira.
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Jorge Sánchez López ★★★
9 Feb 2026 09:16Marta, from experience:
The real signal is not what gets said in the meeting, but what gets talked about in the hallway afterward.
Marta por experiencia:
La señal no es lo que se dice en la reunión, sino lo que se comenta en el pasillo después.
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