We Don’t Blame People

We Don’t Blame People

Welcome everybody and welcome to this blog. In this blog, I want to talk about a topic that completely changes the way we lead, the way we solve problems, and the way we build healthy project cultures. The topic is simple: why we do not blame people. If you care about developing high-performing teams, achieving flow, and improving your environment, stay with us in this blog.

The Struggle With the Concept of Blame

The idea of not blaming people can feel confusing. When I first heard the lean principle that we do not blame the person, we blame the process, my mind immediately went to the extreme examples. What about truly evil acts in history? What about people who do horrible things? Doesn’t accountability matter?

For a long time I wrestled with that tension. But over years of study, reflection, and experience, the concept became clearer. With influence from authors like Eckhart Tolle and Byron Katie, and from understanding evolutionary psychology and human behavior, the pieces finally connected.

Understanding the True Self Versus the Ego

Here is the core insight. When we say we do not blame people, we do not blame their true selves. Their core self, soul, conscience, or present self, depending on your worldview.

Whether you believe in a divine creator or purely evolutionary biology, the reality is the same. Human beings are born into environments shaped by genetic wiring, mutation, natural selection, and survival instincts. Our bodies and brains are survival machines, always scanning for threat, always reacting, always protecting.

Eckhart Tolle calls that part of us the ego. The ego lives in fear, in the past, in the future. It lashes out, hides, fights, and defends. It is driven by survival.

Our true self is something different. It is conscious. It can override instinct. It can choose.

So when someone behaves poorly, what are we really seeing? Their true self? Or something else? That question changes everything.

The Forces That Shape Human Behavior

Once I walked this thinking all the way through, across science and philosophy and real human examples, I realized something powerful.

The reason we do not blame people is because behavior comes from many forces that are not their true self. These forces include:

• System.
• Process.
• Environment.
• Culture.
• Learned and prompted behavior.
• Genetic wiring.

Any one of these can override a person’s intentions. All of them together create the conditions for success or failure. When we focus on the person instead of the conditions, we fail to solve the real problem.

Prompted Behavior and Learned Patterns

Think of prompted behavior. If someone was raised from birth to believe violence was noble, or that another group is the enemy, would they ever have a fair chance to choose differently? Our brains work like AI systems. The prompting determines the output. When the input is broken, the behavior will be broken.

Genetic Wiring and Human Limits

Think of genetic wiring. Sociopathy, neurodivergence, trauma responses, chemical imbalances, neurological differences. Nobody blames a child born with Down syndrome for the way they interact with the world. Nobody blames a person with a missing limb for not completing a physical task. Yet we often blame someone whose brain wiring is different, even when that wiring was not their choice.

This does not mean dangerous people should be free or without accountability. Prisons and mental hospitals exist for a reason, and public safety matters. What it means is that our approach should be rooted in problem-solving, not condemnation. When we understand the cause, we can work toward a cure for future generations.

What Changes When We Stop Blaming People

When we stop blaming people and start addressing root causes, extraordinary things start to happen.

• Teams stop attacking each other and start attacking problems.
• Conflict turns into collaboration.
• People feel safe to speak up.
• High performance becomes possible.
• Respect for people becomes a lived reality, not a slogan.

Lean Thinking Requires Respect for People

Lean thinking is built on this foundation. The Japanese culture that birthed lean holds a deep belief in the inherent value of every human being. Not that every behavior is good, but that every person contains a true self-worth honoring.

If we want to be true lean thinkers, this is where we must go. We do not blame the person. We find the system issues, the process issues, the environment, the culture, the prompts, the wiring, and we fix the root cause.

That is how we elevate people. That is how we elevate construction. And that is how we elevate the world.