The projector hums a single, oppressive note. On the screen, the words ‘Project Phoenix: Lessons Learned’ glow with an optimism no one in the room actually feels. The air is thick with the ghost of burnt coffee and the unspoken anxiety of 13 people trying to look engaged. Mark, the project lead, clears his throat. The sound is too loud in the quiet conference room. ‘Okay, team. Thanks for coming. We all know this was a challenging quarter. To kick things off, what are some things that went well?’

It went over budget by $373,333 and missed its final 3 deadlines. The final product was quietly shelved last Tuesday. It didn’t rise from the ashes; it was cremated.

The true cost of Project Phoenix, visualized.

Yet here we are, pretending to sift through those ashes for gold. Someone mentions that ‘communication improved toward the end.’ Another person praises the ‘can-do attitude’ of the junior developers who worked 73-hour weeks trying to plug the holes in a sinking ship. These are not lessons. They are platitudes. They are the corporate equivalent of telling a grieving widow that at least her husband’s suit was nicely pressed. The real problems-the unrealistic expectations from leadership, the chosen technology that was fundamentally wrong for the job, the department silo that refused to cooperate until it was too late-will go unnamed. They are the specters at this feast, visible to all but acknowledged by none.

The Blame-Avoidant Ceremony

The vast difference between intention and execution.

This isn’t a ‘blameless post-mortem.’ That’s a noble, powerful idea when practiced with rigor. This is a ‘blame-avoidant ceremony.’ Its purpose is to diffuse accountability so thoroughly that it becomes a fine mist, leaving no single person or decision wet. The goal isn’t to prevent the next fire; it’s to ensure no one gets burned by this one.

Helen M.’s Brutal Autopsy

I was thinking about my friend Helen M. the other day. She’s a sand sculptor. Not the kind who makes bucket-and-spade castles, but the kind who builds cathedral-sized, impossibly intricate structures that seem to defy gravity for a few precious hours before the tide claims them. When one of her creations collapses prematurely-a tragedy of moisture content and miscalculated physics-she doesn’t gather her tools and ask what went well. She performs a brutal, unflinching autopsy.

The rigorous accountability of Helen M.

Her signature on a piece is a mark of her taking full responsibility for its existence, stable or not.

The Poison of Pretending

Our corporate post-mortems do the opposite. We treat failure not as a data point about the system, but as a potential indictment of an individual. And because the organization is terrified of judging its own members (or, more cynically, its own management), it creates a process where the system itself is protected from scrutiny.

I hate these meetings. I find the intellectual dishonesty suffocating. Which is why it was so jarring when I found myself leading a retrospective for a smaller initiative last month, hearing my own voice echo the same hollow script. ‘Let’s focus on the positives,’ I said, watching the same forced smiles and vague contributions play out. I did it because my director was in the room, and the project’s main stakeholder was notoriously defensive. Confronting the root cause would have meant a political battle, and I didn’t have the energy for it. I chose harmony over truth. I protected the individuals, and in doing so, I guaranteed the system will produce a similar failure within the next 13 months.

We are like amateur dog trainers who, instead of addressing a puppy’s separation anxiety, just get better at cleaning the carpet and complaining about the dog. The real problem remains untouched because addressing it is hard. It requires looking at the entire system-the dog’s exercise, its mental stimulation, its environment-and making structural changes. It’s about changing the environment and the inputs so the unwanted behavior is no longer the most logical outcome. It’s the foundation of any effective system, whether you’re debugging a software platform or looking into professional puppy training classes because your new puppy has identified your expensive shoes as his primary existential enemy. You don’t blame the puppy for being a puppy; you change the system. You provide better toys, you manage his access, you create a new set of predictable outcomes.

In our meeting, the action items are starting to form on the whiteboard. They are predictably vague. ‘Improve cross-functional communication.’ ‘Re-evaluate resource allocation on future projects.’ These are wishes, not plans. They have no owner, no metric for success, no deadline. They are fortune cookie wisdom, designed to make us feel like we’ve accomplished something before we all disperse and go back to the exact same system that produced this failure. The project cost the company nearly 3 years of developer time and a staggering amount of lost opportunity, and our takeaway is to ‘communicate better.’

Building on Dry Sand

A metaphor for futile effort.

Helen M. told me once what she does after a major collapse. After the analysis, after the notes, after the frustration. She takes a deep breath, walks to a fresh patch of beach just a few yards away from the ruins of her last attempt, and she starts over. She doesn’t forget the collapse. The wreckage is right there, a constant reminder of the price of ignoring reality. She lets it inform her first scoop of sand, her first compaction, the very foundation of her new work.

Learning from collapse and starting anew.

The meeting for Project Phoenix is wrapping up. Mark is thanking everyone for their ‘honesty and vulnerability.’ We all nod, avoiding eye contact. We have learned nothing. We have fixed nothing. The only thing that has been successfully accomplished is the post-mortem itself. The ritual is complete. The system is safe. And somewhere, the plans for Project Phoenix II are being drafted with the exact same sand, on the exact same tide line.