When Things Break Down: Don’t Blame the People First
Every organization experiences breakdowns like missed deadlines, quality issues, safety incidents, or frustrated clients. When that happens, the natural instinct is to point to the person. But before you go there, stop and ask three critical questions:
1. Do we have a clearly defined process? If there’s no documented standard, there’s no fair expectation. You can’t hold people accountable to something that doesn’t exist or isn’t clear.
2. Is the process broken—or just not followed? If the process works, have we trained the team? And more importantly—are we observing the process regularly? You have to inspect what you expect. Direct observation reveals what’s really happening, not just what’s on paper.
3. What is the cultural norm? Even with a good process, the culture may have drifted. Is the process actually followed or has it been left on a shelf while people do what’s fastest or most familiar? If everyone is doing it their own way, then the breakdown is systemic, not individual.
When a manager reacts punitively without confirming these things, they’re operating from outcome bias, judging based on the result alone. That builds a reactive, outcome-based culture instead of a process-driven one. And process always wins in the long run.
The real danger? The Swiss cheese effect, when multiple small misses that seem harmless align to create a major failure. It’s rare, but costly and sometimes dangerous. And it usually exposes gaps that have existed for a while, just never all at once.
That’s why consistently valuing the process and directly observing your 5–7 critical workflows is essential. If you want to stop chasing the same issues over and over, start by shifting the culture: from blaming people to inspecting process.
Here’s the challenge: If you’re a front-line manager or leader, choose 5–7 of your most critical processes this month.
Inspect them against the standard.
Evaluate if the standard is still right.
Confirm training is current.
Ask what your culture is tolerating.
Then start celebrating and rewarding process adherence—not just outcomes. Because sustained performance lives in the process, not in the exception.