The Operations Review That Revealed a Pattern.
I was in an operations review meeting. The metrics were bad - significantly below target. I asked what was going wrong.
I got a list of 10 problems.
I listened. Then I started separating them:
8 of the problems were things already solved, or things that could be fixed easily, or things entirely within his control
2 were genuinely out of his control - Learning & Development hadn't delivered training materials he needed
The 2 legitimate blockers had become a shield for not addressing the 8 things he could do something about.
The 8-Chapter Analogy.
I told him:
"Look, what I'm hearing is this: You have an exam tomorrow. There are 10 chapters you need to study. This evening, your brother had a fight with you, stole 2 chapters from your book, and threw them out.
You're now sitting here in the exam hall telling me that because those 2 chapters are missing, you won't even study the 8 chapters you still have.
Is that what's happening?"
Silence.
Then acknowledgment.
The Pattern: Victim Buffering.
This shows up everywhere. Someone faces a legitimate obstacle - something genuinely outside their control. Then that obstacle becomes a buffer that shields them from accountability for everything else.
How it sounds:
"We can't hit targets because [legitimate blocker]" - but 80% of the gap has nothing to do with the blocker
"I couldn't complete the project because [real constraint]" - but most tasks didn't depend on that constraint
"The system is broken so nothing works" - but many things work fine despite the system
Why it happens:
It's psychologically easier to have one big external reason than many small internal ones
Legitimate blockers provide moral cover - you can't be blamed for what you can't control
Mixing controllable and uncontrollable items makes the whole list feel uncontrollable
The key insight: The blocker is real. The victim buffering is the choice to let that blocker excuse inaction on unrelated items.
