>> I know that if we get into the details, the reasons will be perfectly reasonable. You'll explain what happened, I'll understand why everyone made the decisions they made, and I'll empathise with you.

>> Then it'll happen again.

>> So I don't want the details. I want to know what we're changing.

Even if the manager's approach was correct, this is just a hurtful way to frame it to your team. It's great that the author could reverse-engineer what the manager was doing, but it shouldn't come to that.

Why couldn't the manager say something like:

> You are all great engineers, so I already know that everyone made the best decision available with the information they had at the time. What are we going to do differently moving forward?

I'm still not sure I agree with the strategy, because I don't see how you can understand what happens next without understanding what went wrong. But I can see how the framing might help steer the discussion.

...huh? I've been in corporate America for 19 years now and I've never once had this happen. I've never seen anyone just look for the cause and not ask what can be done to prevent it in the future. Everyone KNOWS that question is coming next.

I'm not so sure this means "I trust you."

If you trust someone that much, why are you even in the loop? Why are you badgering them at all? This is just bad management pretending to offer underlings autonomy. As soon as it fails, everyone loses their job.