Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You've probably said it before.
[00:00:02] My team isn't performing.
[00:00:04] They're not proactive. They don't think for themselves.
[00:00:08] I have to micromanage everything or nothing gets done.
[00:00:12] Here's what I want you to consider.
[00:00:14] What if it's not their fault?
[00:00:17] What if the problem was never the people and it's actually the system you built around them?
[00:00:24] Welcome to the High Impact Leader Podcast, a leadership podcast for business owners and leaders who want self managing teams, stronger accountability and scalable performance without carrying everything themselves. If you're ready to focus on leadership design, not just effort, you're in the right place.
[00:00:42] G'. Day. I'm Brendan Rogers. Let's talk about why your team isn't performing and how you can start designing your leadership.
[00:00:50] Today we're talking about system thinking in leadership.
[00:00:54] Most leaders are brilliant at managing people, but terrible at designing systems.
[00:01:00] And here's the thing. When you fix the system, you rarely have to fix the people.
[00:01:06] If you enjoyed episode 20 on Designing Trust or episode 19 on Lonely Leadership, this builds directly on those themes.
[00:01:14] Because the systems you design either enable or disable the trust and connection you're trying to build.
[00:01:21] Let me show you what I mean.
[00:01:24] This is the pattern that most leaders miss. Here's how it usually goes. A leader comes to me frustrated, my team keeps missing deadlines, or my team doesn't take initiative, or I have to spell out everything or it doesn't get done.
[00:01:39] This is especially true for leaders who are transitioning from hands on hustler to high impact leader.
[00:01:46] You've built the business on your back, doing everything yourself.
[00:01:50] Now you have a team, but they're not performing the way you do.
[00:01:54] Their conclusion, the team is the problem.
[00:01:57] The people aren't cut out for this. They need more training, more motivation, more accountability.
[00:02:04] But when we dig in, here's what we almost always find.
[00:02:08] When most of a team fails, it's rarely about the individuals.
[00:02:13] It's about the system they operate in.
[00:02:16] This is system thinking. In leadership, it means looking at the structures, processes and incentives that shape behavior.
[00:02:26] It means asking a different question instead of what's wrong with these people, asking, what about our system is producing these results?
[00:02:36] And here's why this matters so much.
[00:02:38] When you blame people for problems caused by system failures to two bad things happen.
[00:02:44] First, you kill engagement.
[00:02:47] Your team feels blamed, defensive and powerless. They start walking on eggshells, afraid to make decisions because they might get criticism for getting it wrong. And second, you stay stuck in firefighter and hustler mode, constantly fixing problems that never actually get Solved because the root cause was was never addressed.
[00:03:11] The fix isn't in the people, it's in the design.
[00:03:15] Because behavior is usually a reflection of the environment it's operating in.
[00:03:21] Let's talk about why leaders default to blaming people. And I understand why this happens. It's natural. When something goes wrong, we look for someone to blame. It's how we're wired. But here's the problem.
[00:03:34] Blaming people feels productive. It feels like you're solving the problem, but it's actually a distraction.
[00:03:41] Now, before you push back and tell me your team really is different, let me say this.
[00:03:46] Of course individual performance matters. Of course, some people just aren't the right fit. But if multiple people keep failing in the same environment, that's no longer a people issue. That's a design issue.
[00:04:00] Here's what I've noticed. After working with hundreds of business owners and leaders, most leaders are fantastic at managing people. They actually know how to have conversations, motivate their team, and give feedback. What they never learned is how to design systems.
[00:04:17] Great leaders don't judge behavior first. They diagnose systems first.
[00:04:22] The moment you become responsible for results, you stop asking who's at fault? And start asking what produced the outcome.
[00:04:32] System design is a different skill. It's about looking at your processes, your structures, and asking, is this system designed to produce the results I want? And often the answer's no. Let me give you a real example. A practice owner came to me with a team she described as lazy and not thinking. They seemed disengaged, unresponsive, not taking initiative.
[00:04:57] Her leaders were frustrated and ready to replace half the team.
[00:05:02] But when we looked at what was actually happening, something different emerged. The team wasn't failing because they lacked capability.
[00:05:09] They were failing because leadership had never created enough clarity for success to be repeatable. There was no clear workflow, no documented standards. No one knew what good looked like. What looked like disengagement was, was actually self protection.
[00:05:26] Every time someone made a decision and got criticized for getting it wrong, they learned the safest thing to do was wait.
[00:05:34] When people guessed wrong, which was often, they got blamed for it. So what did they do? They stopped guessing.
[00:05:42] They waited for instructions. They stopped taking initiative because taking initiative meant risking criticism.
[00:05:51] The team wasn't broken. The system was.
[00:05:54] When we created clear processes and defined expectations, the performance transformed.
[00:06:01] Not because the people changed, because the system changed.
[00:06:06] And here's the beautiful part. The same people who were labeled lazy became proactive, engaged team members. They weren't the problem.
[00:06:15] They were waiting for a system that Actually let them succeed.
[00:06:20] And here's another one that really brings this home.
[00:06:23] A business owner I work with lost $450,000 from one account.
[00:06:29] The surface story was team delays. The narrative was the team was too slow, lacked urgency, and they didn't care about outcomes. But here's what the system actually looked like.
[00:06:41] There was no clear timelines, no escalation processes, no accountability structure for critical deliverables. Work was allowed to drift.
[00:06:52] Imagine explaining to your leadership team, your shareholders or your family that nearly half a million dollars disappeared. Not because someone was malicious, not because someone didn't care, but because nobody had designed a process that that made urgency visible.
[00:07:10] The delay wasn't about lazy people.
[00:07:13] It was about a system that allowed work to drift without consequences.
[00:07:18] When we redesigned the execution process with clear timelines, accountability checkpoints and escalation paths, we made execution speed a system feature and not a personality. Hope. The lesson? A $450,000 reminder that that you can't hire your way out of a system problem. You have to design your way out of it.
[00:07:41] And this is where most leaders get stuck. They see the symptom, but they never investigate the system that created it. Which brings us to the question, how do you know whether you're dealing with a people issue or a system issue?
[00:07:57] Most leaders try to solve problems miss. Deadlines are a symptom. Poor communication is a symptom.
[00:08:05] Lack of accountability is a symptom. The system underneath those behaviors is the cause.
[00:08:12] So how do you identify if your problem is actually a system problem? Well, here's a three step framework. Step one Name the symptom. What's actually happening? Team misses deadlines.
[00:08:25] Quality is inconsistent.
[00:08:27] Things fall through the cracks. Now be specific. The symptom is what you see. The system issue is what produces it.
[00:08:37] Step 2 Trace to the process.
[00:08:41] Ask what's the workflow that produces this result?
[00:08:46] Is there a clear deadline workflow?
[00:08:49] Is there an escalation path? When things go off track, Is it clear who owns what?
[00:08:56] If you can't trace the problem to a specific process gap, that's your answer right there.
[00:09:05] Design the fix.
[00:09:07] Instead of hoping people will be more careful, more proactive or more urgent, design the system to make the right behaviour automatic.
[00:09:16] Build in the accountability.
[00:09:19] Create the feedback loops. Document the workflow. Make it impossible to fail. Forward.
[00:09:27] Here are three practical fixes you can implement starting straight away.
[00:09:32] Fix 1 Document the workflow. If it's not written, it's not a process.
[00:09:38] You might know how you want things done, but your team doesn't write it. Down.
[00:09:44] Make it explicit. That's the foundation. And here's a tip. It doesn't have to be perfect, it only has to exist. You can refine it later.
[00:09:54] This is where your competitive advantage is built. The leaders who get consistent results are the ones who've documented what everyone else assumes.
[00:10:05] Create clear ownership.
[00:10:08] Every task needs a single accountable person.
[00:10:12] Not the team will handle it.
[00:10:15] Not someone should follow up.
[00:10:17] One person.
[00:10:19] Clear ownership. That's how work actually gets done.
[00:10:23] Vague ownership is the enemy of team performance.
[00:10:27] When there's shared ownership, things fall through the cracks.
[00:10:31] When one person owns it, they own it. And the difference is night and day.
[00:10:38] Fix 3 Build feedback loops the system should catch issues, not you.
[00:10:45] Build checkpoints, reviews and escalation paths so problems surface before they become expensive.
[00:10:53] Design your system to self correct.
[00:10:56] The best systems are the ones that catch problems automatically before they reach you.
[00:11:03] This is leadership accountability in action.
[00:11:07] Building systems that make accountability automatic, not relying on hope or personality.
[00:11:14] Think about it this way. If your team makes a mistake, should you find out from a client three weeks later?
[00:11:21] Or should your system catch it in the review process before it goes out?
[00:11:26] Good systems catch problems early.
[00:11:30] When you design execution into your process, not hope it happens, you unlock performance without micromanaging.
[00:11:39] Now this is where leadership becomes uncomfortable.
[00:11:42] Because if the problem is your people, someone else needs to change.
[00:11:47] But if the problem is the system, leadership has to change.
[00:11:51] And that's why so many leaders stay stuck.
[00:11:55] Blaming people protects the ego.
[00:11:58] Designing better systems requires ownership.
[00:12:02] So here's my question for you.
[00:12:04] What's one frustration you've been carrying for months that you've labelled a people problem?
[00:12:10] And if you were forced to assume your team wasn't the cause, what part of your leadership system would you investigate first?
[00:12:19] You have more power than you think.
[00:12:21] The fix isn't in the people, it's in the design.
[00:12:26] If you want to go deeper on this, redesigning your leadership so your team can actually perform, I'd love to work with you inside the High Impact Leader Club.
[00:12:34] The High Impact Leader Club is where we go deeper. It's the place for leaders who want to design their leadership intentionally.
[00:12:41] Inside the club. I work with business owners and leaders to redesign their leadership approach so they can reduce leadership load, improve decision making, and build self managing teams with real accountability.
[00:12:55] If you're ready to stop fixing people and start designing systems, join the wait list to be notified when our next intake opens. You can go to LeaderByDesign AUClub. And if this podcast is helping you, I'd love it. If you could follow or subscribe. It helps more leaders find us.
[00:13:15] That's it for today. Thanks for listening to the High Impact Leader podcast. I'm Brendan Rogers, and until next time, design your leadership, build your team, lead with impact.
