It's Not Their Fault: Systems Change for Passionate Leaders

Sometimes I go through the day aghast, wondering why everyone woke up with the specific intention of RUINING MY LIFE today. Slow drivers, annoying emails, unnecessary forms - why are people like this? Why are they so determined to be a pain in the ass?

... you think I'm being silly, don't you. You think I'm being self-involved and pointing fingers at people who don't consider me in their actions at all. And you're right.

Yet so often, this is how we show up at work. We get frustrated with our co-workers, wondering why they just don't understand how busy we are, and how irrelevant their problems and needs are.

This is an inevitable outcome of the popular "people-focused leadership" style of recent years, where we've been urged to put people at the heart of everything we do. This is great when things are going well, but it has a dark side: when things go wrong... people get the blame.

The overwhelming majority of people get out of bed every day and head off to work to do a good job. They care, they try hard and they're operating within a system that is equal parts frustrating and contradictory. They know that's true, but it's their job to make it work. So, they do. They send the third procurement form through, schedule the fourth meeting of the day and push and struggle against all the things we've built to make progress difficult.

It's not our people that need to change. It's the systems we build around them.

Systems leaders know this. They've realised there's little use in being a hero all the time (although some of us need to learn that lesson repeatedly, self included) and they've focused on creating an enabling environment for their teams. When presented with a performance issue, they don't ask what's wrong with the non-performer first - they assume positive intent, ask what's making it hard for that person to perform, and go digging for answers, leaving the place better than they found it.

Behaviours are a symptom, not a cause. When we focus on the way people need to change, we are both correct and completely missing the point.

People do their jobs, with the best of intentions, inside the policies, processes, knowledge and norms your environment requires. If you're no longer happy with the way they're doing that, it's time to change what the environment promotes.

Things change. The systems that we're using developed for good reasons, to prevent genuine problems. After a while, they will become outdated. We know better, and then we do better. Whether it's parenting, work, politics or language, we shift the dial as we learn. It's no longer OK to use culturally appropriated turns of phrase - not because it ever was, but because we understand that now. It's no longer OK to make suggestive comments that make women feel unsafe - not because it ever was, but because we understand safety, violence and sexism differently.

In each of these examples, it's not?people?who are bad. The systems we exist within encouraged behaviour from us that we now understand is bad. I've been trying to remember that recently, as I've been deepening my understanding of gender issues. This is something I'm really passionate about, but I often struggle to have conversations with others without becoming frustrated, feeling hopeless, or provoking defensiveness.

You are a leader - whether it's in your families, communities, peer groups or at work. That means you are responsible for seeking ways to know better and do better. It also means you're responsible for creating systems and environments that enable change in others. It's easy to get caught up in pointing fingers, but that's slow, ineffective and unfair.

Instead, use your power and voice to leave things better than you've found them. Look underneath the surface, ask better questions and challenge the systems and environment you're in to produce better behaviour.

Here's 10 useful questions to start you off:

1. Why are they doing this? (take the 'to me' off...)
2. Is this process built towards achieving the outcome we want, or trying to prevent something we don't want?
3. What are the challenges and barriers to doing the right thing?
4. Why does this behaviour make sense?
5. How can I make doing the right thing, the easy thing - or even better, the only thing?
6. Where else is this problem presenting?
7. In a perfect world, what would be the easiest and fastest way to get from A to B?
8. How can I change the rules of the game, so it's easier to play?
9. Have I tried to use this system myself? What is it like?
10. What are the relationships and connection points involved? How can I improve those?

Start with rules, policies, processes and expectations. Dig for clues, follow the problem trail all the way to its root and always, always assume the best of people. If you get to the end, and discover it was a people problem... cool. You know how to fix those. But when in doubt, always default to systems. It takes longer, it's harder, but it's what real leaders do.