The other problem with that is it makes it hard to put in place a systematic improvement process. A formal failure analysis process is a wonderful thing that can rapidly drive improvement, but to have such a thing you must first be able to say "that was a failure, let's analyse it". In a highly PC environment where nobody ever fails at anything, everything is always wonderful and the only possible change is to become even greater, it's hard to be fully honest with yourselves.
Here's an example from my own career: I once worked at software firm which routinely sent customer feedback to a black hole. Literally, there were forums where customers could talk to each other, and feedback forms on the website, yet either nobody read them at all or there was someone in customer support who theoretically read them but actually didn't.
I discovered that when I tried to use one of the company's own web forms to report a technical issue with one of their products. When nothing happened, I started asking around. The email thread I started (which was plenty polite: just asking who owned this form and whether my feedback was being processed) quickly got like 20 people CCd onto it as everyone tried to pass the buck and eventually it became clear that whilst it had perhaps once been connected to something, the form had at some point stopped being monitored and nobody had noticed, in fact, the feedbacks weren't even being stored anywhere. We were literally throwing customer feedback in the bin.
Eventually, after asking the question of who was actually responsible for this process and who was going to fix it maybe four or five times (lots of people appeared to be involved in nebulous ways and nobody was willing to take responsibility), I pointed out that this seemed like a fairly serious failure and perhaps there should be a post-mortem of some kind, which was a routine occurrence in other parts of the firm.
This suggestion went down like a lead balloon, as you may imagine. I don't recall if the issue was ever fixed: at some point I ran out of energy and stopped caring. This is how engineers get a reputation as being awkward and difficult: they exist in a world where things work or they don't, and there's no shame in writing a bug because we all do it, but when your software is buggy you're expected to admit that and fix it. Lots of people in fluffier job descriptions don't exist in such a world and interpret any hint that they might have actually ... failed ... as hostile and threatening.
Here's an example from my own career: I once worked at software firm which routinely sent customer feedback to a black hole. Literally, there were forums where customers could talk to each other, and feedback forms on the website, yet either nobody read them at all or there was someone in customer support who theoretically read them but actually didn't.
I discovered that when I tried to use one of the company's own web forms to report a technical issue with one of their products. When nothing happened, I started asking around. The email thread I started (which was plenty polite: just asking who owned this form and whether my feedback was being processed) quickly got like 20 people CCd onto it as everyone tried to pass the buck and eventually it became clear that whilst it had perhaps once been connected to something, the form had at some point stopped being monitored and nobody had noticed, in fact, the feedbacks weren't even being stored anywhere. We were literally throwing customer feedback in the bin.
Eventually, after asking the question of who was actually responsible for this process and who was going to fix it maybe four or five times (lots of people appeared to be involved in nebulous ways and nobody was willing to take responsibility), I pointed out that this seemed like a fairly serious failure and perhaps there should be a post-mortem of some kind, which was a routine occurrence in other parts of the firm.
This suggestion went down like a lead balloon, as you may imagine. I don't recall if the issue was ever fixed: at some point I ran out of energy and stopped caring. This is how engineers get a reputation as being awkward and difficult: they exist in a world where things work or they don't, and there's no shame in writing a bug because we all do it, but when your software is buggy you're expected to admit that and fix it. Lots of people in fluffier job descriptions don't exist in such a world and interpret any hint that they might have actually ... failed ... as hostile and threatening.