IS IT REALLY A PEOPLE PROBLEM?
See if you can spot the common factor in these three stories.
Story 1. Alpha is a small business with a Leadership Team who all seem to like each other, spend plenty of time together, and share common high ideals.
Why then are the Alpha Leadership Team always arguing with each other?
Story 2. Phil, the CEO at Beta, has decided the business needs to rethink the way it does Sales and Marketing. A very strong introvert, Phil takes himself off and has a long think about it. He then “communicates” his conclusions in writing. Chaos breaks out.
Story 3. Liz, the MD of Gamma, talks a lot about being committed to the principles of empowerment and delegation. So she’s frustrated when her expressed intentions don’t seem to produce any results. The team below her are equally frustrated. Group WhatsApp messaging goes crazy.
What’s going on? And what’s the common factor in these three cases?
It comes down to this:
Most of the time, when you have poor behaviour in an organisation, it’s due to poor structure or poor process.
Arguing. Chaos. WhatsApp craziness. We’ve got poor behaviour alright!
But it just seems to be so much easier to label something as a “people problem”, to blame personality differences, to urge people to spend more time together, even go to mediation. When the problem actually lies in poor (or unclear) structures and processes.
Let’s take another look at our three stories.
In Story 1, it turns out that the members of the Alpha Leadership Team have hugely overlapping skills and roles. So, of course, they fall over each other all the time, and all want to be involved in every (slow) decision. No amount of “spending time together” is going to fix this. Probably with outside help, both composition and roles of the LT need to be rethought. It’s a structural problem.
In Story 2, Phil’s highly introverted behaviour means that when his Sales and Marketing reorganisation decision (note that it’s not a proposal, it’s a decision) lands, it meets inevitable pushback. It doesn’t matter if it’s sound or not sound, Phil’s failure to consult and to carry at least some others with him proves disastrous. It’s a process problem.
In Story 3, whilst Liz and her Executive Team might say they are committed to empowerment and delegation, when a manager one level below tries to use this (apparent) new-found freedom, he immediately finds himself tangled up in a bureaucratic web and gives up. Word spreads, and others don’t even bother trying. Liz has a process problem.
Once again. Most of the time, when you have poor behaviour in an organisation, it’s due to poor structure or poor process.
It might not seem as intriguing, or as worthy of gossip on company WhatsApp groups, but most of the time that’s where our problems lie. We should all look there, and look hard, before going anywhere else.
GOING DEEPER
We now offer a short video programme if you want to go deeper with the types of issue explored in these short stories.
