You're still putting the concept of "blame" into the water. Blaming in the context of a situation is called "an excuse", and it's still defensive. It's pretty

You're still putting the concept of "blame" into the water. Blaming in the context of a situation is called "an excuse", and it's still defensive. It's pretty nuanced after this though. If folk are defensive when a problem happens ("I don't know how this happened"="it wasn't me"), you have a blame culture. So how does one figure out what happened without someone jumping on the blame-sword (or run screaming from it)? I haven't quite figured out the answer to that question, but one thing that helps is only ask what happened if it's truly a mystery that must be solved. If it was human error, quietly move on.