“If only the market would improve…”. Have you heard those words? Maybe you’ve even spoken them while attempting to justify your sub-par performance.
If so, you’re not alone. There are a lot of people blaming the market these days — whether over dinner, in a coffee shop, or even in boardroom, conversations all rely on that same excuse.
When performance is less than expected, people inevitably look for the cause. At that point, you have the choice to look internally and take responsibility, or externally and surrender to the hands of fate.
Driven by a desire to explain her defeat in the US presidential election, Hillary Clinton wrote, What Happened, a book which The Financial Times labels as “the blame game”. Putting your feelings into writing is thought to be cathartic, but you should think twice before making public what’s clinically taught to be a private practice.
Admittedly, I haven’t read What Happened. so I’m merely responding to the media’s comments. However, the media consensus appears to be that Clinton blamed others for her defeat, rather than her own lacklustre campaign.
The book is purported to read something like this: “If the nightly news networks hadn’t focused 100 minutes on my email scandal … If I hadn’t had to spend 600 hours of the campaign doing hair and make-up … If Obama had given a televised address about Russia’s interference … If the former director of the FBI, James Comey, hadn’t reopened the investigation into my emails … then I would have won.”
Hearing about the centers of blame for her election loss felt like I was listening to leaders who conveniently point externally to justify their own shortcomings. The desire to blame comes too naturally to too many people. Yet, it’s the completely wrong thing to do and a very unbecoming trait in a leader.
As a leader, you shouldn’t declare that someone or something else is responsible for a fault or wrong, even if you feel it. Blaming the market may be providing you with a mistaken source of temporal comfort, but if you blame it for your shortcomings, then you must also credit it for your success. So, instead of laying the blame elsewhere for a bad situation, take responsibility yourself.
Here, there’s a lesson to be learnt from famed investor and hedge fund founder, Ray Dalio. Early in his career, Dalio endured a major, catastrophic loss. He predicted in 1982 that a great depression was coming and wrote “the enormity of our debt implies that the depression will be as bad or worse than that witnessed in the thirties.”
Depression was, and is, a scary word.
He had studied debt and depression back to 1800, done his calculations and was confident that the debt crisis led by emerging countries was coming. Because his views were so controversial he asked others to check his reasoning and point out if he was wrong. No one could find any flaws.
Dalio’s controversial, kooky idea got him invited to Congressional hearings and featured as a guest on Wall Street Week. At that time, the markets were in worse shape and more volatile than during the financial crisis of 2007-08.
Being sure of how the markets would respond, Dalio took an investment position based upon his hypothesis. The only problem was, he was dead wrong. The markets didn’t act as they should. Instead, they responded to the Fed’s actions and rebounded.
Dalio lost everything. He had to let his employees go and borrow money from his father to pay for his living expenses. It would’ve been easy for him to blame the markets, but instead, he wanted to show he had been wrong.
From that moment on, he took control and shifted his thinking from “I’m right” to asking “how do I know I’m right?” This change is the foundation upon which he built Bridgewater Associates. Today it stands as the US’s fifth most powerful private company and the world’s largest hedge fund, with $160 billion (Dh587 billion) in assets under management.
Dalio put the blame where it really belonged: on himself. He identified what he could have done differently, learnt from the experience, and changed going forward.
Next time you’re tempted to blame the market, don’t. Instead, step up and use that moment to grow.
The writer is a CEO coach and author of “Leadership Dubai Style”. Contact him at tsw@tommyweir.com
