The Blame Game:
How the Hidden Rules of Credit and Blame Determine Our Success or Failure
Coming in March, 2011
Publisher: Free Press: A Division of Simon & Schuster
Synopsis:
For better or for worse, the dynamics of credit and blame are at the heart of every organization and make or break every career. Unfortunately, credit and blame are rarely assigned in an objective or fair manner, and individual psychology, team dynamics, and corporate culture all influence the process by which credit and blame are allocated. In this book, we will take a behavioral economics-like approach to the "marketplace" of credit and blame in the workplace and consider how both rational and irrational forces influence how the contributions and capabilities of individuals and teams get "valued" in a marketplace that is critical to all of us yet highly inefficient. We will argue that the dynamics of credit and blame are as much a cause of organizational behavior as they are an effect of it, and that changing how individuals, teams and organizations assign credit and blame can be a powerful, positive force for organizational evolution and change.
Authors:
Ben Dattner, Ph.D. is an organizational psychologist, and the founder of Dattner Consulting, a workplace consulting firm based in New York City. He has helped a wide variety of corporate and non-profit organizations sort through their credit and blame issues to become more successful. Ben's consulting services enable organizations to make better hiring and staffing decisions, to enhance the professional capabilities of managers and employees, to configure teams more effectively, and to reduce the amount of interpersonal and inter-group conflict by, in part, embracing candor and accuracy when it comes to handing out credit and blame.
Ben is an Adjunct Professor at New York University, where he teaches Organizational Development in the Industrial and Organizational Psychology MA Program in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He has also taught Strategic Career Management in the Executive MBA Program at Stern Business School. Ben received a BA in Psychology from Harvard College, and an MA and Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from New York University, where he was a MacCracken Fellow and his doctoral dissertation analyzed the relationship between narcissism and fairness in the workplace. Ben's master's thesis examined the impact of trust on negotiation.
He is a member of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the Consulting Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association, and the Metro New York Applied Psychology Association. Before graduate school, Ben worked at Republic National Bank of New York for three years, first as a Management Trainee and then as Assistant to the CEO. After graduate school, he was Director of Human Resources at Blink.com before founding Dattner Consulting.
Darren Dahl has worked with several high-profile authors such as Keith McFarland on The Breakthrough Company (a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today best-seller), as well as intellectual property experts Mark Blaxill and Ralph Eckardt on their book, The Invisible Edge. Before becoming a collaborative editor and writer, Darren worked for four years as a staff writer at Inc. magazine, where he remains a contributing editor. Prior to joining Inc., Darren earned his Master of Science degree in journalism from Columbia University in New York City. He also holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the State University of New York, Albany and a Bachelor's degree from Union College in Schenectady, NY.
Ben at Columbia Business School: Video
Credit and Blame at Work: Presentation slides
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