One-liner: Asking others to define the fix instead of proposing or owning one yourself.
Also known as / related terms: Decision avoidance, action-displacement, “what do you think we should do” deflection, learned helplessness posture.
What it is
They hand the problem straight back to you.
When confronted with a problem in their own area of ownership, the person responds not with a proposed remedy but with a question that pushes the work of deciding back onto the group or onto whoever raised the issue: “What do you think we should do about it?” Christopher Anderson’s 2003 review, “The Psychology of Doing Nothing” (Psychological Bulletin), found that when people feel heightened personal accountability for an outcome without a clear path to a good one, decision avoidance rises: choice deferral, status quo bias, and inaction all become more likely.
The move hijacks a normal, even collaborative-sounding instinct: a direct, warm-toned request for someone’s input (“what would you do?”) triggers near-automatic compliance, because refusing to answer a direct question about what you think reads as obstructive or evasive. Asking others to generate the solution lets the person stay visibly “engaged,” soliciting ideas, nodding along, while never being the one whose proposal can be criticized or whose ownership can be pinned down.
What it looks like (workplace)
A manager is told their team’s process is causing repeated client delays. Their response, delivered warmly, like an invitation rather than a dodge: “Honestly, you’re closer to this than I am. Write up what you’d change and we’ll discuss it.” Two weeks later, a memo circulates with the confronter’s name on it, an unresourced rollout begins, and the next retro opens with a question about what went wrong with their plan.
How it actually unfolds when confronted
- Confrontation. A named problem in the manager’s own area of ownership is raised, with specifics.
- The warm hand-back. “That’s a really good point. What would you do?” sounds collaborative, even flattering. It is also the standing posture behind Weaponized Incompetence, and its evidentiary sibling: where Burden Reversal reverses the burden of proof, this reverses the burden of proposing a solution.
- The transfer completes. If the confronter’s plan works, the manager sponsored it, and credit follows the sponsor, not the author, Credit Theft / Idea Appropriation. If it fails, it was the confronter’s idea from the start, and the manager was simply “open to hearing other views,” a clean landing described in Scapegoating.
- Outcome. The manager’s record shows engaged, open leadership either way. The underlying process that caused the original problem never actually changes, because no one with the authority to change it structurally ever had to.
One-off or pattern?
One instance of this proves nothing. A bad week, real time pressure, or a manager who genuinely lacks context produces the same sentence. Three things separate the tactic from the accident:
- Repetition. The “what would you do” hand-back recurs across unrelated problems that sit squarely inside the person’s own area of ownership.
- Direction. Whoever answers the question inherits the risk of the fix, while the person who owns the problem keeps the appearance of engagement.
- Asymmetry. Proposing a plan costs its author credit if it fails and no protection if it works; asking the question costs the asker nothing.
Seen it once, write it down and wait. Three instances, on three unrelated subjects, over weeks, is a pattern worth documenting.
Why they do it
Proposing nothing means nothing they propose can fail. Ownership of the fix, and the risk that rides along with it, stays with someone else, while the manager keeps the appearance of accountability without any of its actual exposure.
How to protect yourself
Ownership belongs with them, and you can hand it back.
- Redirect it back cleanly: “This is your area, what’s your proposed next step?” Don’t let the question stand unanswered by you.
- Set a deadline for a plan, in writing: “Can you come back by [date] with what you’ll change?”
- If a plan does emerge, get it in writing with an owner and a date attached, so stage 3’s credit-or-blame transfer has a paper trail to run into.
- Name the pattern if it’s chronic: “I notice the question keeps coming back to me rather than a proposal from you.”
Cross-links: Burden Reversal (the evidentiary twin, proof shifted instead of the proposed fix); Weaponized Incompetence (the standing posture this move sits inside); Credit Theft / Idea Appropriation and Scapegoating (the two exits, depending on whether the plan works or fails); Displacement to “Management”/Authority (the sibling that hands the problem up instead of back).
Sources:
Primary research and original sources
- Christopher J. Anderson, “The Psychology of Doing Nothing: Forms of Decision Avoidance Result from Reason and Emotion” (2003), Psychological Bulletin, 129(1), 139-166, SSRN, the peer-reviewed review identifying decision avoidance under accountability pressure.
Background and general explainers
- CHS Alliance, Ten Psychological Tactics for Avoiding Accountability, practical countermeasures for action-avoidance patterns.
Label note: Descriptive-original coining, grounded in the established research concept of decision avoidance under accountability pressure.
- 1ConfrontedConfronted with a problem inside their own area of ownership.
- 2Handed BackResponds by asking others what to do instead of proposing a fix.
- 3Ownership Stays AwayStays visibly engaged while the risk of a criticizable proposal falls elsewhere.