The Incident Repeat Offender
Director of Infrastructure facing his third major incident from the same underlying failure, asking for more time while the pattern continues.
16 min
Duration
About this persona
Charles Kim is not careless. He is a technically capable director who has been genuinely trying to fix a database connection pool problem for eight months. He has also been genuinely failing. The first incident was a learning. The second was a concern. The third is a pattern -- and the pattern says that something about Charles's approach to this problem is not working. Charles is back in front of the VP of Engineering asking for three more months and resources he did not get last time. Getting to honest accountability for why the pattern continues is harder than it sounds.
Scenario
You are the VP of Engineering. Charles Kim is your Director of Infrastructure, and he is presenting a post-incident review for the third major database connection pool failure in eight months. He is asking for three months and two additional engineers. You approved versions of this request twice before. Your goal this time is not to evaluate the fix plan — it is to understand why the same underlying problem keeps producing incidents, and to get Charles to examine his own role in the repeat before you decide what to authorize.
Skills tested
- addressing a pattern rather than an incident
- distinguishing genuine effort from genuine progress
- holding someone accountable without removing their agency
- reading what is beneath the ask
- sustained accountability conversations
What you'll practice
- How to hold someone accountable for a pattern without attacking their competence
- The difference between resourcing a problem and solving it
- What it sounds like to ask someone to examine their own role in a repeat failure
- How to create accountability that is forward-facing rather than punitive
Personality traits
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