I spent most of last week building a rather sophisticated financial model in Excel. Monday morning, I discovered that Excel had crashed, and its supposedly helpful recovery system had resurrected a seemingly random assortment of older file versions. None of them were synchronized, and much of my work was gone. Never mind that I’d diligently saved everything along the way. Apparently, Excel had other ideas. I was furious. And after decades of using Excel, I had plenty of colorful things to say about Microsoft’s software development practices. Some of them probably weren’t suitable for polite company.
But here’s the thing: I knew better. I’ve been working with Excel for most of my adult life, and I know how to protect myself against this sort of catastrophe. I could blame Microsoft all day long, but that wouldn’t bring my model back. Years ago, while working with leaders of a major oil and gas company, I was introduced to Mark Samuel’s distinction between the Victim Loop and the Accountability Loop. The former keeps us trapped in blame, rationalization, and frustration. The latter encourages us to recognize what happened, take ownership of our response, learn, and move forward.
I had a choice. So, I rebuilt the model. And here’s the interesting part: it took considerably less time than building it originally, and the result was actually better. I’d lost the files, but I hadn’t lost everything I’d learned while creating them. I knew which approaches worked, which didn’t, and what I’d do differently. Reconstruction isn’t starting over. It’s starting again with everything you’ve learned.
We can’t always control what goes wrong. But we can choose what happens next. Blame may feel satisfying in the moment, but accountability gives us something considerably more valuable: the ability to do something about it.
And yes, I’m still annoyed with Microsoft.