Am I actively trying to blame or not blame?

Looking to blame can be as damaging to getting good information from an interview as actively trying to not blame anyone.

The desire to quickly find someone to blame can be an unintended consequence of the desire to get to a swift resolution for the incident. Many companies aim to investigate and conclude any incidents within a fixed time period, and often aim for the quicker the better so they can demonstrate they’ve taken decisive action. Blame can be part of a quick and easy fix. However, this can turn an investigation into a focused quest to find someone (or something) to blame, rather than to find out what happened to a level of detail that can usefully inform organizational learning and change.

An early fixation on someone we think may be to blame can also lead to confirmation bias, where questions are asked to back up this conclusion and questions that could explore other possibilities are ignored.

The alternative position – actively trying to not blame someone for the incident, can be as a result of a wider ‘no-blame culture’ adopted by the organization. However, this can result in an interviewer declining to explore areas where responsibility might lie. Information about the people involved and who did what (even if unintentionally or as a result of upstream systemic safety failings) may be neglected and not captured, limiting the information collected and thus the organizational learning potential from the investigation.

In either case, anchoring bias to either blame or no blame as an underlying goal can influence the investigation. Anchoring bias can shape the questions asked and the lines of enquiry followed by fixating us to this fundamental premise.

Blame should not be part of any incident investigation interviews – information is being collected to fact-find, not fault-find. Any responsibility or consequences should only be assigned once all the information has been collected, analyzed and conclusions reached. Concluding about consequences should not form part of the information collection process.

Suggested actions:

For Interviewers

• Be mindful of your own opinions on whether someone should face any consequences because of the incident, and acknowledge this can bias your questioning.
• Don’t forget that at the interview stage the investigation is ongoing, blame or punishment are not a goal during the process.
• The outcome of the analysis may lead to appropriate consequences, but blame should not be considered during the interview.
• Be clear that the investigation is to find out what happened, not to actively apportion blame.
• Reflect on whether your ambition to avoid blame is leading you to avoid some questions or explore only certain aspects of the incident, particularly where people are involved. All the relevant information should be collected at this stage.

For Managers

• Don’t add time pressure constraints to incident investigations as it can bake bias into the process.
• Don’t include timescales for incident investigation completion in your KPIs or make other promises that set unnecessary parameters on the process.
• Acknowledge and understand that the process will take as long as it will take.
• Be mindful that blanket ‘no blame’ policies can influence the interview processes by instilling bias in the questioning.

Find out more about confirmation bias and anchoring bias here.