To err is human, to blame it on somebody else shows management potential.

This is a modern, anonymous workplace aphorism that riffs on the much older proverb “To err is human” (popularly associated with Alexander Pope). It circulated widely in late-20th-century office humor—especially in management and corporate-culture settings—as a cynical joke about bureaucratic blame-shifting. The line is typically presented as a one-liner in collections of “office sayings,” cartoons, or email-forward humor rather than as a remark traceable to a single speech, book, or identifiable author. Its anonymity reflects its function as folk humor: a compact, repeatable quip expressing shared frustration with organizational politics.

The quote satirizes a perceived incentive structure in hierarchical organizations: mistakes are inevitable (“to err is human”), but career advancement may reward those who deflect responsibility rather than those who admit fault. By calling blame-shifting “management potential,” it implies that leadership can become associated with image management, scapegoating, and protecting one’s position instead of accountability. The humor depends on inversion—turning a moral commonplace about human fallibility into a critique of corporate behavior. Read more broadly, it warns that cultures without psychological safety or clear responsibility encourage defensive politics over learning and improvement.