Why CYA is the Devil

The last few days I can't help but think about work when hearing about Katrina aftermath. Its like FEMA and NOPD and all the respective governments are all at a notes meeting during a tech right out of hell.

For those of you that don't know, a notes meeting is a gathering among the creative and production teams from a show that happens late at night after a technical rehearsal. You talk about what is working and what isn't, what has to be finished, and what has to change - sometimes because its broken and sometimes just because it is wrong.

In a functional production, you look at the next day's schedule, prioritize the notes, arrange to minimize any scheduling conflicts and leave the building with alacrity. In a dysfunctional production, collaborators argue over whether something is in fact broken, and if so who broke it. Or if why the reason something doesn't work was because it was built wrong or if it was simply designed incorrectly from the get go. The problem being that as these tete a tetes ramble on the clock is ticking, everyone is getting more tired & frustrated, and really you are no closer to knowing what the schedule is for the next day or how to prioritize your notes.

I believe that it came to me sometime mid undergrad, and so it is something I try to pass on to my classes around the same time, that all things being equal knowing what went wrong - or even moreso knowing who's fault something is - it just doesn't matter at that moment.

My senior year I posted these signs that said "from here to the end of the semester I am officially taking the blame for everything that goes wrong - now, lets please move on."

The most important questions to be answered in those meetings are all some form of "what do we need to get through tomorrow?" Authorities in the gulf states ought to be thinking that way. The press ought to be thinking and reporting that way. I'm not saying that there won't be a time for the placing of blame. It just isn't now. There's nothing to be gained.

And there is plenty to be lost, because with the bantering of recriminations comes the reflex of CYA. What better way to keep oneself from taking the blame than to deny that there is anything wrong in the first place. Lacking that, pick out the person least able to protect themself and push the blame to them - classic misdirection.

(this works in notes meetings too by the way:
DESIGNER "will you ever fix the rattle in those casters?"
TD "didn't the costumes look just fantastic tonight?"
DIRECTOR "oh, actually I have some costume notes"
TD aside "ah, the perfect crime!")

Lately there is a whole posse of people running around saying alternately that the Katrina aftermath was some other person or agency's fault or that actually nothing really went wrong in the first place. Hey folks! Focus! The show isn't open yet. What do you have to do to get through tomorrow?

Everyone knows something went wrong or in the very, very least could have gone much better. CYA, whether it comes in the form of blame shifting or denial doesn't help feed anyone, doesn't house anyone, doesn't reunite anyone, doesn't rebuild anything. Step up and solve the problems. I bet the world will cut you a whole lot of slack in the end, even if you were yesterday's goat as long as you make yourself today's hero.