Every system is perfectly designed to produce whatever results it creates.
We may not like those results. We may not appreciate them. But we can’t pretend they came out of nowhere.
Intention matters. Even the most diligently crafted processes fail when people don’t put them to work. But, contrary to popular belief, the solution to organisational problems isn’t just “more personal accountability”, or “more oversight”.
When we’re not happy with the results we’re getting, it’s easy to hyperfocus on the things we can see. Like checklists.
If someone said they did the thing, and they didn’t do it, then what else is there to do but lay the blame at their feet?
Sadly, this is yet another scenario where jumping to conclusions leads to the wrong answer.
Yes, bad actors exist.
Yes, people have a personal responsibility to do the things they’re charged with, and to conduct themselves reliably.
But there are few people who consciously set out to do a bad job, or to get one over on others.
In other words:
What we take to be a failing of character could just as well be a failing of culture.
There are more forces in play than what meets the eye. And although we might struggle to label them, we’ve all seen them first-hand… and felt their effects.
Unspoken pressures can lead even reliable people to cut corners when they think no one’s watching. Or when they think the cost of action will be greater than whatever value they’ll create by making the hard choice.
Consider the following scenarios:
The employee who has “quiet quit” & is simply coasting along at their desk day after day…
The team member trying to attend to personal demands on work time…
The technician who notices a glaring flaw in the system, but doesn’t speak up (because they know the kind of headaches it’ll cause)…
The manager who passes blame for errors onto a subordinate, letting someone else take the fall for their mistakes…
All of these feel they’re doing right. Like they’re doing the best they can, with what they have, where they are.
Rather than asking how they’ve failed the system, maybe the better question is – how has the system failed them?
Processes & protocols designed in a vacuum crumple in reality. Like taking something built on the Moon, dropping it on Earth, and expecting the increased gravity to have no impact.
If you don’t like the results you’re getting, take a step back and look at the broader context your systems are designed in.
You might just learn something that helps to solve those persistent issues once and for all.