The Enemy Is Out There
A tendency to blame external factors or people for problems, which is a by-product of focusing on one's own position and ignoring systemic interactions. This cognitive distortion makes it difficult to see how internal actions contribute to external issues.
THE IDEA
“THE ENEMY IS OUT THERE”
A friend once told the story of a boy he coached in Little League, who after dropping three fly balls in right field, threw down his glove and marched into the dugout. “No one can catch a ball in that darn field,” he said.
There is in each of us a propensity to find someone or something outside ourselves to blame when things go wrong. Some organizations elevate this propensity to a commandment: “Thou shalt always find an external agent to blame.” Marketing blames manufacturing: “The reason we keep missing sales targets is that our quality is not competitive.” Manufacturing blames engineering. Engineering blames marketing: “If they’d only quit screwing up our designs and let us design the products we are capable of, we’d be an industry leader.”
The “enemy is out there” syndrome is actually a by-product of “I am my position,” and the nonsystemic ways of looking at the world that it fosters. When we focus only on our position, we do not see how our own actions extend beyond the boundary of that position. When those actions have consequences that come back to hurt us, we misperceive these new problems as externally caused. Like the person being chased by his own shadow, we cannot seem to shake them.
The “Enemy Is Out There” syndrome is not limited to assigning blame within the organization. During its last years of operation, the once highly successful People Express Airlines slashed prices, boosted marketing, and bought Frontier Airlines—all in a frantic attempt to fight back against the perceived cause of its demise: increasingly aggressive competitors. Yet, none of these moves arrested the company’s mounting losses or corrected its core problem, service quality that had declined so far that low fares were its only remaining pull on customers.
For years American companies who had lost market share to foreign competitors blamed cheap foreign wages, labor unions, government regulators, or customers who “betrayed us” by buying products from someone else. “The enemy is out there,” however, is almost always an incomplete story. “Out there” and “in here” are usually part of a single system. This learning disability makes it almost impossible to detect the leverage we can use “in here” on problems that straddle the boundary between us and “out there.”
When to use it
Diagnosing team conflicts and blame-shifting dynamics in organizations.
Improving organizational learning by identifying systemic causes of problems.
Personal reflection to avoid scapegoating and develop a more systemic perspective.
Strategic analysis when facing competitive threats: look beyond external factors to internal leverage points.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Little League Blaming the Field
A boy, after dropping three fly balls in right field, blames the field itself for his inability to catch, rather than his own performance.
Organizational Blame Chain
Marketing blames manufacturing for poor quality, manufacturing blames engineering for poor design, and engineering blames marketing for interfering with design. This cycle prevents the organization from seeing its systemic issues.
People Express Airlines
People Express Airlines blamed aggressive competitors for its decline and responded with price cuts and acquisitions, but failed to address its core problem of declining service quality, which was the real reason for losing customers.
American Companies vs Foreign Competitors
American companies that lost market share blamed cheap foreign wages, labor unions, government regulators, and disloyal customers, rather than recognizing their own role in the systemic dynamics of global competition.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
When you encounter a problem, do you immediately look for external causes? How can you shift to see your own role?
Think of a time you blamed someone else for a failure. What systemic factors contributed to the situation?
How can an organization break the cycle of 'the enemy is out there' to improve learning and performance?
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- The Fifth Discipline The Art Practice of the Learning Organization (Peter M. Senge)