Manager likes to find out who's to blame

[Ceci03]

I hate her attitude. If she finds an error she's immediately on teams saying "who did this"
Or she tags you and asks leasing questions until you realize there's an error. She accused me today and she was right I had signed off something and there was a mistake. However I couldn't have made that mistake hard to explain but anyway I just took it on the chin and apologized. I had signed off so it was my responsibility. Another member of my team is a young guy about 22 and I find it so irritating as he is always the first to say "it wasn't me".
Anyway a big error has come to light and I know it was him. He's already said to me it couldn't be him as he was on annual leave on that day but it's more complicated than that. I'm dreading the morning when the manager finds out about the mistake she is going to ask me how did this happen. I've already sent her a detailed email with the corrections and a sorry this happened but didn't take responsibility . Thing is I hate throwing anyone under the bus. I think we all make mistakes etc and the team should stand by one another. I found another error made by a new girl who will be mortified. If the manager asks me I want to say I don't believe in blaming any one individual but that the team will do better in the future. I dont want to name names. I think I'm going to say it to her if she starts asking who is to blame. Wwyd

I currently have a manager like this. He is underqualified for the job and doesn't understand properly what "his" team actually do. This means he gets embarrassed when a mistake comes to light, because he will be asked by the CEO what happened and he can't explain it - and when he feels embarrassed, he gets angry at whoever caused the problem.

If we can head things off at the pass by discovering and explaining the mistake to him before it becomes more widely known, he is more pleasant to deal with.

It's still not a very good situation and I am looking to leave and I think you probably should be too. But, in the meantime, think very hard about how you can discover mistakes (even ones that have already happened) within the team, before the boss finds out about them. At least then you will be in front of the situation and won't feel defensive.

On the contrary. The manager is not doing her job if her team members are regularly making mistakes, errors are occurring, the sign-off process doesn't function properly and there is a focus on finding someone to blame rather than looking at the root causes of the mistakes and fixing them.

Well she didn't hit the roof but I'm not happy with my colleague the young guy. He is as slippery as f*. He immediately put up a message saying he was on annual leave and didnt know. Still didn't admit it was him who did the error. Anyway manager has suggested a meeting next week which is good. The way they work is just not working. I think I posted on here about it when I started the job. Everyone does everything and to me it just leads to errors. So we have changed it so now everyone has their own areas. I'm happier as I can keep control of my "stuff" especially as this young fella is all over everything making changes and doing things without telling me and then of course "it wasn't me" . Am hopeful. Agree that a lot of managers are just not trained in how to manage effectively. And yeh often not needed. Was in a meeting the other day and I swear the manager was so useless! We all sat and watched as he tried to type things onto an excel sheet. With all these very capabable colleagues all sat round but they are not managers

Agree with this ^^ Massive difference in how the aviation industry responds to mistakes (how’d it happen so we can ensure it doesn’t happen again) vs hospitals (how can we hide, deny, or blame individuals).

Only I’d add an caveat to the last bit. Some managers might want to improve but some of those managers do not and just seek to CTA and/or play the blame game as a petty control/power play. Your manager sounds like the latter and is insecure.

Mistakes happen. Individuals typically get blamed in organisations and the wider structures, pressures, workload, and systems are never taken into account.

In a similar position I refused to name names saying it wasn’t a helpful avenue to discuss. Instead I kept bringing the manager’s attention to the wider systematic issues that needed addressing to help prevent future errors eg talking about new staff getting more induction and training. Looking at workloads and inappropriate resourcing etc. It worked in that one case, but only because my boss at the time wasn’t actually an asshole. Much depends on your manager’s character and maturity.

Surely looking for the causes is exactly what she's doing??

It's a manager's job to ensure that any mistakes that are made are rectified and that people who make them are trained adequately so they don't continue making them.

The issue is that they rarely look to the wider context of the mistake and where it really is, though. Rookie made an error? Well, who put an unqualified person in charge? And why? Are either of those the real mistake? Or an experienced person made an error? Why? Was it a stupid mission from above that should never have been green lit in the first place?

In reality, it's usually an Apprentice-style "who's responsible for the failure of this task" witch hunt to get someone blamed entirely so everyone else (ie, higher managers) can wipe their brows and carry on.

God knows how this shit system has lasted so long.

Her approach may be wrong but what she's doing is right. When there is a mistake you are supposed to find out how it happened so you can learn lesson from it.

It sounds like mistakes are fairly frequent so root cause investigation should happen and should result in changes to process that address that root cause.

Blame culture doesn't fix problems it creates them.

This old fashioned style of management is counter productive and creates a culture dishonesty.

Ultimately your manager is accountable for the error. A decent manager would do a deep dive and route cause analysis to understand what's gone wrong and how it went wrong. Typically mistakes are made because processes and training are not robust enough, plus there are human factor issues which a decent investigation would get to the bottom of.

Addressing the route cause would prevent frequent reoccurring mistakes. It's not that hard.

Totally agree. People are not going to come forward and problem solve if there is a toxic blame culture. There are many situations where levels of complexity mean that there is a fair bit of scope for human error. Working in a stressful surveillance environment is going to increase error rates not improve them.

It’s “Root cause” @Beneficialchampion2 not “route cause”.

I’m not saying this to be needlessly pedantic (and know it may just be autocorrect at work), but because I can see how “route” might make sense and thought you might want to know in case you are using the expression in a work context.

When someone at my work makes a mistake, I like to find out who did it. Not to give them a bollocking, but so I know whether they need some specific guidance/training to stop it happening again.

In our work everything has to be checked before it goes out the door. Sometimes things slip through the net. When I used to be doing the checking, if this happened, I would take responsibility as I was the final point before it went out the door.

We've changed our systems since so that there is a multi-layered checking process. The errors going out have dropped dramatically and, ultimately, it's taught everyone to be a bit more critical of their own work.

I agree with PP's, your manager isn't handling it in the most appropriate way, but they do have a point in terms of identifying where something has gone wrong.

It sounds like mistakes everyday at your work. I'm not surprised your manager wants to know who is responsible. Maybe they need more training.

This ⬆️. I do this with my team and it means people will own up to errors without being shamed by anyone and the whole team can learn from it. Scaring people into hiding things or blaming others isn’t helpful.

Suggest the manager is leaving herself open to bullying claims if accusations and public humiliation are the way she handles errors within the team.

Also when we’re talking about errors, what are the consequences and risk as that really makes a difference. I’m imagining a marketing agency who keep signing off on typos, or is it people not getting paid the correct amount or what?

I know the difference, thank you for your commentary and pedantry.

After a 12 hour night shift at work and no sleep sometimes the brain is not as sharp as it should be.

Well yes, but it's clear from the OP that it's a pretty rubbish and toxic workplace where frequent mistakes are made and nobody owns up to them.

I'd be handing my notice in. I couldn't work for a manager like that.

I'd be frustrated as hell as your manager.

I've got you in place to flag mistakes with sign off, ideally the next step is to address training needs as a result.

Instead you're signing off mistakes and then 'covering' for staff so now you have a team making mistakes and no idea who needs training or management.

You're not 8. It's not about being told off ffs.

Of course not, because their heads will roll! It's self perpetuating.

And as I said, the real mistake is often not so straightforward.

This. As a manger I would want to know who was doing stuff wrong.

@Ceci03 We all sat and watched as he tried to type things onto an excel sheet.

it’s a brave colleague who types onto the big screen.

What? All these responses calling it toxic because a manager is looking for the root cause of mistakes!

Mistakes cost a business money, if mistakes are happening it is important to know which employees are making the mistakes and why. Not because a manager is simply looking for people to blame but so that they can identify problem areas, I.E. if retraining is needed or the team is under too much pressure.

If people are getting disciplined for every single mistake then that is obviously toxic, but simply finding out the root cause is not, and you shouldn't feel guilty about telling your manager.

The only attitude that would bother me is the "it wasn't me guy". Admit your mistakes and learn from them.

FFS I specifically said you probably knew but I was pointing it out just in case you didn’t , there is no need to be so bloody defensive.

The manager isn't looking for the root cause though on the basis of the Information provided by the OP.

They are looking to assign blame to an individual, and no one within the team likes to take accountability hence the whole 'throwing folk under the bus' comments.

To me that stinks of an inexperienced Manager whom has no idea of what accountability means for them as a Leader of people.