The System Is the Problem, Not the People

When performance falls short, most organisations reach for the same two responses: a development conversation or a performance management process. Both locate the problem in the person. Most of the time, the problem is in the system around them.

The system shapes behaviour far more than intent or capability. When the wrong behaviour is the easiest path, when incentives point in one direction while expectations point in another, when processes create friction that forces workarounds, people adapt. They’re responding rationally to the environment they’re operating in.

What makes this hard to catch is that high performers compensate. They absorb the ambiguity, find ways around broken processes, and keep things moving. For a while, this masks the system failure entirely.

When they eventually burn out or leave, it looks like a retention problem. It was a design problem the whole time.

The cost rarely gets traced back to its source. Hiring cycles repeat, rework accumulates, the people doing it properly lose confidence that it matters. Execution slows, people are often capable, but they’re working around conditions that were never designed to support the work.

The diagnostic question is what is the system making easy? Where do the same issues keep surfacing regardless of who’s in the role? Where are teams compensating for processes that don’t function? Where are decisions being delayed, duplicated, or quietly overridden? Those patterns point to the system, not the individual.

The fix is structural. Redesign the conditions before coaching the person. Remove the friction before adding capability. Align what gets rewarded with what needs to happen. It’s slower than a performance conversation but it’s the only intervention that is sustainable.

Where in your organisation are capable people working around conditions that were never designed to support them?