MATTHEW COSSOLOTTO
Ovations International, Inc.
(w)
Website: www.ovations.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact:
Matthew Cossolotto
President, Ovations
International
About Matthew Cossolotto
Matthew Cossolotto, author of HabitForce!,
is founder and president of New York-based Ovations International (www.ovations.com). He provides executive-level speechwriting and
coaching services and conducts “Unleash Your Podium Power” and “Harness Your
HabitForce!” workshops. He is a former
assistant to House Speaker Jim Wright and legislative aide to Representative
Leon Panetta.
Memo to Our Political Leaders:
Stop Finger-Pointing and Start Finding Solutions
By Matthew Cossolotto
The headline on the front page of a
recent The New York Times (
This particular headline dealt with
the full-court blame game that followed the claim by
Hmmm. Interesting how that works.
The North Korean nuclear test is only the latest in a long series of issues that have prompted knee-jerk, counter-productive finger-pointing from both major political parties. Another example is the scandal involving disgraced former Republication Congressman Mark Foley (R-Florida). As soon as his salacious emails hit the news media, fingers of blame starting pointing in every direction on Capitol Hill. The curious thing about this blame game is that it has been mostly restricted to various members of the Republican House leadership and their staff pointing fingers at one another. The Republican majority leader and the chairman of the Republican campaign committee both say they told the Republican speaker months ago, but the speaker says he doesn’t remember. The speaker in turn announces that he will fire any of his personal staffers if it turns out they engaged in some kind of cover up.
Who’s in charge here? It seems like everybody wants to occupy positions of power and influence, but nobody wants to take responsibility. Even when Speaker Hastert says he assumes responsibility and that the “buck stops here,” in the next breath he blames liberal financier George Soros and the Democrats for the Foley scandal.
We saw a veritable tsunami of
finger-pointing after Hurricane Katrina.
We’ve experienced unrelenting finger-pointing about the war in
News alert: blaming the other candidate or the other party is not a solution. It may help win elections in the short term, but the problems themselves won’t go away. Indeed, most of them will only get worse the longer we put off finding solutions.
As I discuss in my book, HabitForce!, if practiced on a repeated basis finger-pointing becomes a seductive habit, an unconscious mind-set that only leads to failure. Finger-pointing is all about making excuses, avoiding responsibility. And that attitude doesn’t get you very far. It certainly doesn’t help the country face and solve pressing problems.
Finger-Pointing is the first habit
in the seven-letter F.A.I.L.U.R.E. acronym I discuss in HabitForce! Finger-pointing
stands for playing the blame game, scape-goating
other people and circumstances. People
who fail in life, people who fall short of their potential, tend to blame
circumstances and other people for their short-comings. We all have a laundry list of favorite excuses. Our parents, the educational system, your
humble beginnings. The list goes on and
on.
As Benjamin Franklin said: “A person who is good at making excuses is seldom good at anything else.” This country doesn’t need excuse makers right now. We need leaders who seek out common ground and who embrace common sense solutions to pressing problems.
Finger-pointing is one big F.A.I.L.U.R.E. Trap. As a country, we’re stuck firmly in this trap and we won’t escape until more of our leaders – and our citizens themselves – start to point the finger of responsibility at themselves. We may not have caused a given problem to happen. We may not technically be “to blame” for it. But we’re all responsible for finding common sense solutions. We’re responsible for finding a way to solve the problem, for creating a better future. We can’t escape that responsibility with finger-pointing.
Fortunately, we can break the pattern of finger-pointing. For every habit or mind-set of F.A.I.L.U.R.E. there is a corresponding S.U.C.C.E.S.S. mind-set. Instead of Finger-Pointing, we all need to Shoulder Responsibility. Shouldering responsibility is the equal-but-opposite habit of S.U.C.C.E.S.S. that I describe in HabitForce!
I hope our political leaders will bear in mind that the whirlwind of finger-pointing that now passes for political discourse in the country is a symptom of failure. Let’s stop the blame game and start assuming responsibility for solving problems. I believe the voters will reward candidates at the polls who are dedicated to finding common ground and pursuing common sense solutions to pressing problems.
And if the two existing major
parties continue to offer nothing more than furious finger-pointing, perhaps
it’s time for a new political party in
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