Lead without Blame

Building Resilient Learning Teams

A leadership model to move past outdated workplace blame and shame strategies. Leaders shift to cultivate resilient teams capable of facing adversity and setbacks confidently.

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Diana Larsen and Tricia Broderick bring a wealth of experience, deep knowledge and practical ideas to courageous leaders everywhere trying to break free of the baddest actors in the positive culture game: fear and blame.
Richard SheridanCEO & Chief Storyteller, Menlo Innovations | Author of 'Joy, Inc.' & 'Chief Joy Officer'

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The Leadership Through Learning framework is simple and powerful. I will definitely be providing this book to my leadership teams.
Ted OhrDirector, Global Customer Success, Google Cloud

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A practical guide to help to build powerful autonomous teams while taking an insightful look at leadership fallacies that can cripple teams.
Tamani GeorgeVP of Operations, Fit For Life

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Lead without Blame provides insight for leaders who desire to shift from efficiency to effectiveness, and from coercion to collaboration.
Leah BreenDirector of Office of Educator Excellence, Michigan Department of Education

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Larsen & Broderick provide thought-provoking, practical ideas that empower leaders to co-create resilient environments of learning. Their Leadership Through Learning model, facilitation advice and practical storytelling serve as a toolkit to make learning organizations a tangible reality instead of an abstract concept.
Heidi HeflandVP of Engineering, Kin Insurance | Author of 'Dynamic Reteaming'

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In this book, Diana and Tricia get right to the heart of the matter of so much inefficiency, confusion and holding back in organizations: the shame and blame that pervades and runs so much of our behavior, often unconsciously. In helping leaders move from shame and blame to learning and growing, they not only increase the impact and joyfulness in the leader’s work, they help the organization get more of what it wants to create. The real-life stories are sometimes painful because they hit home but that’s what makes them useful. The authors have laid a clear and compelling pathway in this book. Let them guide you through it and into the key skills and shifts that result in your ability to create resilient learning teams.
Lyssa AdkinsAgile & Leadership Coach | Author of 'Coaching Agile Teams'

Workplace finger-pointing stifles creativity, reduces productivity, and limits psychological safety. Although no one sets out to be judgmental, learning new habits is hard. Two experienced leadership coaches and agilists share a road-tested leadership model that continuously embraces humility and failure as part of the growth process to deliver results.

By facilitating blame-free retrospective meetings, leaders chart a productive path forward. They amplify three essential motivators of purpose, autonomy, and co-intelligence within their team. These team motivators gain further strength layered with four resilience factors: inclusive collaboration, transparent power dynamics, collaborative learning, and embracing conflict. After applying these strategies, learning leaders will help their teams and themselves become more resilient and better equipped to handle any unexpected and challenging tasks that comes their way.

About the Authors

Diana Larsen

Diana is co-founder and a mentor at the Agile Fluency® Project. Diana co-authored the books Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great; Liftoff: Start and Sustain Successful Agile Teams; and Five Rules for Accelerated Learning. For over twenty years she has worked with leaders to design work systems, improve project performance, and support leadership and enterprise agility.

Tricia Broderick

Tricia is a leader, motivational speaker, and organizational advisor. With over twenty years of application experience, Tricia began this journey as a software engineer and evolved into roles such as project manager, executive, and coach. She founded Ignite Insight & Innovation to help ignite leaders and teams towards truly achieving high performance outcomes.