April 1 took me back to the days when I was studying towards a Master of Business Leadership (MBL) degree at the University of South Africa’s Graduate School of Business Leadership.

This course of study was – and is presumably still – known as the ‘divorce course’, for obvious reasons. In our particular study group, there was a nigh-50% chance of this happening. It was by far the most gruelling academic course that I have ever undertaken, but it was also the most rewarding. Personally, I derived great value, satisfaction and life skills from my MBL, which still stand me in good stead. There is nothing quite like the MBL, which I can unreservedly recommend.

At the time of my study, the course tended to be quite popular, as it was said to result in a significant salary increase or increased earning potential once one obtained the qualification – a fast track up the career ladder, if you will. Though it might have been true then, which I sincerely doubt, those days are no more. Should your sole reason for pursuing an MBL be financial, then you would be well advised to put your finances to better alternative use.

So, what did the MBL teach me? This is a favourite question, which I have been asked many times before. It is as if there is this magical piece of advice of wisdom from my mouth to God’s ear, as the saying goes. Well, if this is what you seek, then listen closely. If there is a single piece of wisdom to be had, one that you might misconstrue as emanating from a fortune cookie, then it is the words that were imparted by a professor who will remain nameless. I will only admit to the fact that it was a ‘he’ who taught us that “it is easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission”. Ironically, these words were not his own, but those of a ‘she’, Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906 to January 1, 1992). She was a US naval officer, an early computer programmer and the developer of the first compiler for a computer programming language.

These words of wisdom are not a licence for you to act recklessly; rather, when you have considered and decided on a particular course of action, you should proceed without fear or favour. But no matter how well thought through your course of action might be, things do go wrong. In technical terms, s@#$% happens. So, when you have made a mistake you have to say it, yes, the word ‘sorry’.

But in South Africa, particularly among poli- ticians, there is generally no desire to do this. Politicians’ true intention is only apparent when another dimension is added. Have you noticed – I seem to think that it is a recent development, but I might be wrong – that their apologies, in most cases, tend to be qualified? The real sting in their apology, if this is eventually forthcoming, is the deflection of responsibility from themselves onto others. They seem to be oblivious to the fact that, by pointing your finger at someone, you have three fingers pointing right back at you.

Desperately as I tried, I could not find the reference to what I am about to tell you, something that I know for a fact I have read, and which has become an undisputable truth to me. The truth relates to the golden rule of business. Yes, there is but a singular rule, and I fear one that has migrated into South African politics too. The golden rule is to establish blame. If you do not believe me, you have either not worked in a business environment or have done so long enough or have been fortunate enough or are simply oblivious to the employment of this strategy. Either way, you will, without a doubt, experience it sometime during your work life. Some even have a name for it. They call it the ‘blame game’, where failure and fault are virtually inseparable and attributed to a single person – usually wrongly, but deliberately so.

According to the Harvard Business Review, there is what they call ‘a spectrum of reasons for failure’. At the top, the most ‘blameworthy’, is ‘deviance’, where an individual chooses to violate a prescribed process or practice. What follows are those reasons that are considered less ‘blameworthy’ and, at the very last, we have ‘praiseworthy’ reasons. After ‘deviance’, there is ‘inattention’, where an individual inadvertently deviates from specifications. This is followed by ‘lack of ability’, where an individual does not have the skills, conditions or training to execute the job. After this comes ‘process inadequacy’, where a competent individual adheres to a prescribed faulty or incompetent process. Then there is ‘task challenges’, where an individual faces a task too difficult to be executed reliably every time; ‘process complexity’, where a process comprising many elements breaks down when it encounters novel interactions; ‘uncertainty’, where a lack of clarity about future events causes people to take seemingly reasonable actions that produce undesired results; and ‘hypothesis testing’, where an experiment conducted to prove that an idea or a design will succeed fails. Finally, there is ‘exploratory testing’, where an experiment conducted to expand knowledge and investigate a possibility leads to an undesired result. Exploratory testing is considered the most praiseworthy.

Gone are the days of individuals taking responsibility for their own actions. Gone is the honour in doing so. The last line of defence is to transfer the responsibly for wrongdoing or transgression onto others, and then have them point out that you were responsible. If anything, it buys you more time. Also, when they do point you out, you can unreservedly attack their character.

Consider professional sport. Gone are the days when players acted with honour. Nowadays a football player takes a dive without there being any contact, or, in rugby, the game continues after a player has clearly stepped into touch if the umpire/referee does not point out the transgression. The spectators might not be happy – well, some might be happy – but who cares? Some might even misconstrue this as “part of the game”. Is this where politicians are now taking their cue from?

So, if no one is going to point you out, then you continue on your merry way, but you still have an ace up your sleeve – your very last card to play. If all else fails, then identify and expose a scapegoat – your very own fall guy. You need to be able to blame someone else (someone of innocence) for your actions. If you are forced to apologise, then do so by being extremely selective in the choice of words, and speak in the past, present or future tense, or even in different persons (first, second or third) – whichever would best serve your cause – remembering that your end game is to remain in power at all costs, no matter the cost that your actions impose on others. It is, after all, a dog-eat-dog world, you tell yourself.

Actor and comedian Bill Murray said it best: “So, if we lie to government, it’s a felony. But, if they lie to us, it’s politics.”

Just in case you believe that failure will not result in change, I leave you with what I came across – it is called Focus on Failure: “All things must end. In 2006, the world’s oldest company, Kongo Gumi, a family-owned Japanese temple builder, closed down. It had been in business for 1 400 years.” But I know, and appreciate, that sometimes we just want the wheel to turn a bit faster.