[ttr2021]

"Fall back on blaming the process when failure comes around and avoid ever pointing fingers or owning it."

Some organisations can do this, but I've see plenty that might outwardly try to avoid pointing fingers, but you can tell that despite warnings given, they do blame.

I told several leaders that one of their systems was literally on the brink and we were fighting fires on it every other day, and the processes in place were horribly broken.

12 months later shit hit the fan, my feedback was that I wasn't proactive enough, and they basically threw me and my team under the bus.

This despite budget under cutting, limits in hiring, enormous optimisation, education of other teams, research. Just getting 'No' or no real outcomes all the time on any escalation.

The leaders did this serially across the business, and lacked ownership on this aspect to even give people the resources and autonomy to do anything about it, yet would come looking when it came time, to throw other teams under the bus like this

[throwaway290]

Go on record and keep a record so you can see how proactive you are and demonstrate it to others. It may seem you are loud and clear but in reality they didn't hear and you just didn't repeat it again. I am guilty of forgetting that the problem (and that I told about it) is top of only my own memory but for the boss it's very remote and needs repetition to sink in. Also guilty of trying to teach a lesson to make people listen better to me the first time but that's a bad idea too. And if people blame you later you can always throw email transcripts at them.

[laserlight]

I don't think any amount of record showing would prevent the problem that GP had. Regardless of how proactive GP were, management would probably simply say “you should have pushed harder”. Hindsight is 20/20 after all.

[throwaway290]

The difference can be big if you want to sue for unlawful termination or if you are sued if company claims you caused them damage. The bosses may have reasons to have some things off the record but you may have reasons to keep paper trail

[gjvc]

This is sold gold advice.

[jimmaswell]

Lesson: Get everything in writing, save it, and forward it to the person, their boss, and whoever else you can CC when someone lies about it.

[laserlight]

I don't think not having evidence was the problem that GP had. Upper management asked GP to be more proactive. So, they expected GP to be more assertive or take measures regardless of management's approval, which would be doomed still in other ways.

[jaggederest]

BCC is a continuation of war by other means, to paraphrase Von Clausewitz.

[nine_zeros]

I have seen this. Engineers get thrown under the bus despite management making poor calls.

[aledalgrande]

Really sad to see people like these, in most companies I worked at, in leadership positions.

[isaacremuant]

They set themselves up for success no matter what (take credit for hard arbitrary deadline being successful or blame whoever can't meet it), which clearly leads them to be in those leadership positions.

It's very common.