I think it can be very productive to say something like "hey, I'm a little upset because I tried to get ahead of this problem and to me, it didn't feel like my concerns and ideas were taken into account and now we're considerably behind. I'd like to be helpful on these types of problems in the future, can we make a change to support that?"

If the statement is just about ego, it shouldn't be said. If there's something deeper that is causing relationship or business issues, find a way to dig it up and say it clearly with the goal clearly outlined.

I can almost guarantee that if someone is saying, "I told you so", they've probably also tried to explain to someone why X is a bad idea or why Y isn't going to work the way they think it will, or at all.

If I am your supervisor chances are that I would package it more friendly, but it depends. More importantly is that we put this conflict behind us. Depending on the relationship it could be "I told you so, next time let us do X".

I think a direct, kind, but clear and unambiguous response would go a lot farther. Followed by a suggestion, to demonstrate you’re not just complaining, you’re trying to be helpful.

To your point about culture: feeing like you couldn’t say any of the following probably says a lot about either the environment, or about your own comfort with candor.

You are overcomplicating this -> This sounds overcomplicated to me. Have you considered X instead?

That meeting sounds like a waste of my time -> Can you clarify what you’re hoping for from me being in this meeting? Can I read the notes, or send feedback async instead?

I told you so -> (Ask yourself why you want to even say this. Then, don’t say it, and say the why instead.) 1. “Well, that’s a shame. Are you looking for suggestions on next steps?” 2. “Should we go back and consider plan X?” 3. “What did we learn from this outcome?”

The way this often goes down is that someone who is perceived as more senior will push something through, steamrolling right over well-formed interjections. If someone lower on the org chart tries to make more noise than the steam roller, the consequences can be quite bad for them.

If something then fails as predicted, why shouldn't that be noted? If someone has expertise that was ignored, that should be taken into account in the future, and part of the post mortem should be figuring out why their expertise was ignored.

The thing is, it should probably be noted by management or whoever is in the chain of responsibility and probably not by the person who was ignored, but management often doesn't want to admit mistakes of this type.

So what do you do then? How is it constructive to ignore a glaring issue in your planning and decision making process?

The professional way to say "I told you so" is to write a post mortem.

- What was the problem?

- What solutions were considered?

- Why was the chosen solution implemented?

- How did the chosen solution fail?

- How would have considered but discarded alternatives fared?

- What will be the choice in the future?

That's basically "I told you so" in report form. Just stick to the facts and it's not petty but helpful. Hidden under the ego stroke of "I told you so" is a lost opportunity to have taken the correct or better path when it was available. Understanding why that opportunity was lost is important for an organization.

Step one is for everyone to agree the outcome was poor (or for the client to say so, or the market, or senior leadership, etc.).

Otherwise writing that report is very literally "I told you so", written to make a point.

(I do think it is a related scenario where the outcome was fine but you still believe an alternative approach has value; so you then have to make a choice between accepting "my way is not the only way" and moving on or repeating your point)

Takes a certain skill to be tactful and deliberate enough to do this.

Yet it takes mastery and wisdom to know when to say your peace and rest on that.

It's been my experience that even with a sufficient and proper amount of CYA, visibility and otherwise intentional effort put forth so that your actions and words toe the line and dutifully provide context, one can still find themselves on the pointy end of the blame stick being wielded by the more powerful, persuasive or otherwise popular trying to cover their own asses.

In fact, I would argue its literally your job to do so. You’re paid to make the right decisions AND to persuade others (and to be persuadable if you’re wrong).

If it turns out you were right but failed to convince others because you failed to present all valid arguments, then you are negligent.

Unfortunately, most organizations don’t do distributed meritocratic decision making. The hierarchical structure is often a key component of the failure lattice, and it’s attributes and effects need to be confronted directly.

At the time, I felt like “no one asked me to fix this, and I was doing all these other things you did ask me to do, so why are you bitching that I didn’t fix it?”

Subsequently, I wasn’t so sure and now lean towards thinking that I was in the wrong for not taking initiative on an item that was that critical and where I was the company expert.