Walking down the sidewalk this morning, I overheard a construction worker speaking on the phone and telling the person on the other end that it isn’t going to be his fault when the furniture doesn’t arrive on time.

I imagine with construction, where there are so many different companies with so many different employees doing such wildly different tasks, that the phrase, “It’s not my fault,” is heard quite a bit.

Is it human nature to work, first, to avoid fault? Do we just approach work this way naturally? Or is it the management we’ve experienced who think in terms of blame instead of solution, asking the question, “How do we solve this?” instead of “Who’s screwed this up?”

You’ll get a lot better work from people if they’re thinking about how to make it amazing instead of how to avoid fault.