Taylor Swift’s Advice for Finishers

“It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.”

While I didn’t catch the Taylor Swift Eras Tour when it swung through the Midwest this past summer (I did see her in 2015 on “The 1989 World Tour” – fantastic!), this lyric from “Anti-Hero”, the synthpop opening single from her 2022 Midnights release, carries with it a great message for me and for all finishers.

To start, criticism for taking Swift’s words wildly out of context for the purpose of this column is accepted. “Anti-Hero”, Swift’s favorite song on Midnights, is an autobiographical tour through all she hates about herself: her anxieties, her insecurities and given her incredible fame and notoriety, not feeling like a person.

In another way, though, the first line to the chorus, “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me”, has become a bit of a mantra for me this fall. Not about my anxieties, insecurities or (lack of) notoriety, but about my actions and emotions as a leader and the importance of taking responsibility for — well — everything.

We live in a world where, it seems, few accept responsibility for much of anything and casting blame has become our default response to any criticism. Politicians blame each other, children blame their parents, parents blame society, employees blame employers, employers blame them back and everyone blames COVID. What happened to taking responsibility?

Earlier this year, when I found myself falling into the same mental rut (i.e., mentally casting blame elsewhere for falling short on a couple of business goals), I reversed the trend by co-opting Swift’s lyrics and repeating them to myself.

“It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.”

In other words, rather than taking myself off the hook for sub-perfect performance, I made the decision to own it.

In my years working in and around the finishing industry, I’ve seen countless examples of leaders who do the opposite. For a time, one contract finishing leadership group blamed almost everything on the maintenance team. Machine downtime, quality issues, a fork truck breaking down, a backup in waste treatment, the default was to blame maintenance. In doing so, the rest of the organization, including the operations leader to whom maintenance reported, absolved themselves of the responsibility to problem solve.

We see this practice in other areas of finishing. The vice president of operations blames the salesperson who brought in a challenging project. The director of sales claims her team could sell so much more if only the shop floor would deliver on its commitments, the shop floor supervisor claims the bad parts would never have reached the customer’s dock if only the quality department was doing its job.

What none of these people understand is that company cultures in which blaming others is a core value are doomed to mediocrity and slow or no growth. 

Instead of casting blame, these leaders would do well to repeat these words.

“It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.” When leaders accept responsibility for all results, several benefits accrue.

First, they build an environment of teamwork. What happens when a leader blames the maintenance team? Almost instinctively, the maintenance team blames the leader back or tries to pass the buck to another group within the organization. Everyone rationalizes their own poor performance and problems never get solved. This behavior is the opposite of teamwork.  Leaders who eschew the temptation to blame others build better teams.

Second, they switch their mental energy away from finding scapegoats and toward finding solutions. Every moment we spend looking for someone or something to blame is a moment we don’t invest in fixing the problem. 

Third, they engender respect on the part of the people to whom they report.  As a company president myself, I’ll take a leader who owns their responsibilities and results over one who wastes time blaming others any day of the week.

Finally, taking responsibility for outcomes gives leaders the moral authority to expect the same from their direct reports. When a leader chooses to own problems and outcomes, their team members will mirror the behavior. Show me a team where every member looks at how they can own part of and fix every problem, and I’ll show you a high-performing team.

Granted, not every result or outcome is directly the leader’s own doing. Team members make mistakes. Some may be careless and lazy. Routinely, variables well outside the leader’s control (economic conditions, the shortage of skilled talent, the weather, tight cash and the like) impact performance. But blaming these realities, rather than accepting them and either fixing them or finding ways to perform at a high level despite them, puts the leader and the organization further behind.

Instead of seeking to blame other people or issues, own situations, own solutions and own results. As a leader in the finishing industry, the next time you catch yourself passing blame to others for substandard outcomes, repeat these words.

“It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.”