'Blame Culture' would be heightened in a sole proprietorship

' Blame Culture' in an organisation is the bane of every employee. This is a given. Every organisation has at least a little bit of it, especially if the employee is unaware of the employer's attitude towards error. Once figured out ( albeit too late), depending on whether it's constructive and helpful or destructive and downright demotivating, the employee either embraces or rejects the ' blame someone else' attitude.

Now, imagine if there were to be a blame culture prevalent in a sole proprietorship. Even the margin of covering your blame would be oh so much slimmer, because the blame will be fed down to the mice at the bottom, direct from the big cheese himself. You will never know when your ' boss' will blame you for something in front of a client, you'll never know when you'll be handed a 'pink slip', you'll never know if you'll be blamed for a broken flush if you had the misfortune of discovering its defect first! In other words, you'll be transformed into a nervous wreck and would do anything and everything to palm off blame to someone else, irrespective of how cowardly and irresponsible it may be. It's also so much worse because in a sole proprietorship, the owner will ( undoubtedly) be under the impression that his way is indeed the best, hence no matter what your professional instincts tell you, you will be forced to endure the humiliation of having his/her idea aired in public and then have it rejected (because it was obviously bad, to begin with) and get BLAMED for it getting rejected, even though you didn't have anything to do with it in the first place!

My personal experience is that this sort of thing generally doesn't take place in an MNC, however it happens constantly in sole proprietorships, where rules and regulations can be amended as and when chosen without prior communication or collective buying from the rest of the employees. In an MNC, a procedural amendment never happens over night, neither does this happen without the buying of at least the majority of those employed.

It's indeed a top down thing at the end of the day. The 'top' is so much closer in a sole proprietorship, which is why the ' one who sits at the top' needs to make double the effort to understand his employees and create a blame free culture. This would ideally include: * Practicing what you preach - you'll be surprised at how well versed sole proprietors could be in their ' management theories', pity it generally is limited to paper. * Don't harp on the issue at hand, rather concentrate on the solution it calls for - in other words, enough with the blame! What can we do to rectify it??? * Delegate with confidence - It must really be hard to let go of your 'baby' but if you don't let go, you'll wind up micro managing without your knowledge. * Set an example of being an advocate of ownership - Stop blaming your team in public for your screw ups. At the end of the day, they work for you, and you may think you're impressing the client, but in reality you're causing them to question your credibility. * ' It's OK to make a mistake, we're all humans' - You will be perceived as more approachable and transparent if you communicate this to your team, and they in turn will develop as more responsible individuals. The sole proprietor has a heavy task on his hands, but imagine if he could create a blame free culture in his organisation coupled with all the pluses a sole proprietorship offers, the limit to his company's growth and development would be boundless.