At The M Makers, one of the most important shifts we’ve made in our culture journey is committing to “living at cause, not at the effect of things.” It’s not just a leadership philosophy. It’s a way of working we’ve intentionally embedded across the team.
Why? Because we began noticing a familiar pattern.
“I couldn’t complete the task because a few ad hoc items came in.”
“The task wasn’t reassigned back to me, so I wasn’t aware of the status.”
“I was overwhelmed and forgot to follow up.”
“You seemed busy, so I didn’t want to disturb you and tried to solve the problem on my own.”
These reasons are understandable, and often valid. But they also reveal something deeper. When we stay at the effect of our circumstances, we give up the opportunity to influence outcomes. We focus on what happened to us instead of asking what we could have done differently.
So we started making a habit of asking ourselves:
“What could I have done to prevent this from happening?”
That one question helped us stop circling around the same issues and start owning the role we each play in creating better results.
Since last year, we raised the bar. Whenever breakdowns happened like missed deadlines, misalignment, dropped balls, we didn’t just look at the task or the person. We looked inward, as a team, and asked:
- What could I be responsible for here?
- What action could I have taken to move this forward?
- How did we, as a collective, allow this to happen?
It was confronting at first. People naturally get defensive. But over time, as trust grew, something powerful emerged: We stopped blaming and started building.
We built rapport, self-awareness, and a shared sense of accountability. We saw teammates proactively following up. We saw people taking initiative to ask for help early, to flag bottlenecks, to nudge others with empathy. What used to feel like small individual tasks became team wins just simply because we followed through on what we said we’d do.
Are we there yet? No. And we probably never will be because this is a mindset that will always be a work in progress.
But what matters is this: We’ve started. And we keep choosing every day to hold ourselves to the question:
“What could I have done differently?”
For leaders who want to build a “living at cause” culture, here are some first steps:
Model it yourself
Own your misses in front of your team. People learn from what you do, not just what you say.
Ask better questions.
Instead of asking who’s at fault, ask what part of this we own and what we could have done to prevent it.
Make it safe to take ownership.
Responsibility only happens when there’s room to speak up without fear. Create space for honesty, not shame.
Reward the right behaviours.
Celebrate those who consistently follow through, check in with others, and move things forward.
Coach the language shift.
Help your team notice when they’re in “effect” mode.
From “I didn’t know how” to “I could have asked for help.”
From “I was waiting” to “I could have followed up.”
Keep it alive.
Treat this like a muscle. Check in regularly. Ask where we showed up at cause and where we let things slide.
Because when we live at cause as a team, we don’t just improve performance. We build trust, momentum, and the kind of culture that creates its own future.
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