People or Process
I’ve been engaged in a conversation with Gary Farush over at ComplexWork regarding whether performance issues can be addressed by people or process. We agreed that sometimes its people and sometimes its process. Gary contends that people tend to get blamed first, and that by not addressing the process issues they tend to recreate the same problems.
This is probably true. People don’t do bad work because they want too. They tend to act in they way that makes the most sense to them. So, when expected results aren’t being delivered, you should look at these five process/organizational environment issues before you start blaming the people.
1. Inertia or Momentum: "That’s the way we’ve always done it"
2. Conflicting Priorities: Compensation or rewards are in conflict with specific objectives. Or a person is being pulled in multiple directions by various levels of management.
3. Bad Inputs from Upstream in the Process: The person is having to deal with poor requirements or bad inputs from upstream.
4. Lack of Tools, Knowledge, or Understanding: A person can’t perform their job satisfactorily if they aren’t made capable through enabling technologies, training, or expectations.
5. Management Inattention: The work itself is not being managed. This can actually manifest itself as any of the prior four points.
All of these causes can be identified, managed, and the impact on your business reduced. There is also a very issue though that certain jobs require specific skills and innate competencies. Skills can be trained. Innate competencies are part of how people are wired. When you have addressed the five problems above and performance doesn’t improve, match the competencies of the people to those best suited for that job. Also, it is probably smart to ensure when hiring that you getting people with the best set of innate competencies for the job.