Stop Calling It a People Problem

“My team aren't accountable.” “Nobody takes ownership.” “They don't communicate.” “They're resistant to change.”

I've heard different versions of these throughout my career and, sometimes, they're completely true. There are occasions when someone isn't performing, isn't taking responsibility or simply isn't doing what is expected of them. But I think we can be too quick to reach that conclusion, particularly when we're frustrated with what we're seeing.

Before deciding you have a people problem, there is another question worth asking: have we actually made it possible for our people to succeed?

It's very easy to look at an outcome and blame the person. Someone hasn't done what you expected, a new process isn't being followed or a change you've introduced isn't landing in the way you thought it would. From a leadership position, that can be incredibly frustrating, particularly when you feel you've already explained what needs to happen. You've discussed it in a meeting, sent an email or told the team what you need, so why isn't everyone just getting on with it?

That's normally the point where I start looking at what sits behind the problem. Was the expectation genuinely clear, or was it clear to the person communicating it? Does everyone understand who owns what? Is there a documented process that people can actually find and follow, or does the knowledge still sit in someone's head? If something has changed, have we taken people through that change properly, including why it's happening and what they now need to do differently?

Those questions matter because what looks like a people problem on the surface can be something completely different underneath.

Take accountability. If two people both believe the other person owns something, it isn't necessarily a lack of accountability; ownership may never have been clearly defined. If someone completes a task differently every time because there isn't a documented way of doing it, we need to look at the process before assuming we have a performance issue. Equally, if people continue working in the old way after a new system or process has been introduced, calling them resistant to change doesn't tell us very much. Understanding why they haven't adopted the new way does.

Part of this comes down to something that sounds obvious but is easily forgotten when we're leading teams: people aren't all like us.

We naturally communicate in the way that makes sense to us. A leader can walk away from a conversation thinking they've been perfectly clear because, had somebody given them the same information, they would know exactly what to do with it. The person on the other side of that conversation may have had a completely different experience.

Some people want the headline, the outcome and the freedom to work out how they get there. Others want more detail and need to understand the process and what good looks like before they feel comfortable moving forward. Some people will immediately challenge something they don't agree with, while others will say very little in the room and need time to process it before coming back with questions.

None of that removes accountability. It simply means that managing people effectively requires us to understand who we're managing rather than expecting everybody to respond in the way we would.

This is one of the reasons I find Everything DiSC so valuable in the work I do. It's not about giving someone a letter, putting them into a box or using behavioural style as an excuse for poor performance. It's about giving leaders and teams a better understanding of how people naturally communicate, make decisions, respond to pressure and approach change. Once you understand some of those differences, you can adapt the way you lead without changing the standard you expect.

That becomes even more important when businesses are going through change, and there is certainly no shortage of that at the moment. New technology and AI, changing roles, new systems, restructures, cost pressures and different ways of working all mean that organisations are asking people to adapt constantly.

The interesting thing about change is that leaders have usually had much longer to process it than everybody else. A leadership team may have discussed something for weeks, challenged the options, worked through the risks and eventually reached a decision. By the time it's communicated to the wider team, the leaders involved are ready to move forward.

The employees hearing about it aren't necessarily in the same place. For them, day one of the change might be the meeting where it's announced.

If we expect people to immediately understand the decision, accept it and change the way they work, we're probably going to be disappointed. People need to understand why something is changing, what it means for them and what will be expected of them afterwards. They also need the opportunity to ask questions and, depending on the person, they may need different levels of information and support to get there.

Announcing a change and managing a change are two very different things. When we confuse the two, it's easy to label the reaction we get as resistance when actually people may simply not understand what they're being asked to do or why.

Then there is process, which I think is one of the most underestimated parts of the whole conversation.

In smaller or growing businesses, processes often develop naturally. Everyone knows how things are done because they've always done them that way. The knowledge sits with the people who have been there the longest and, while the team is small, it generally works.

Then the business grows. New people join, roles change, responsibilities move, somebody leaves or a new system is introduced, but the process itself never really gets documented. Before long there are several versions of how something should be done and nobody is completely sure which one is right. The person who has been there longest becomes the unofficial instruction manual and, when someone inevitably gets something wrong, the conversation turns back to accountability.

Clear, defined and documented processes shouldn't be about creating bureaucracy. Done well, they do the opposite. They give people clarity about what they're responsible for, how something should work and where they have the freedom to make decisions. They also give managers something objective to manage against rather than relying on assumptions about what somebody “should have known”.

And this is where accountability absolutely does come back into the conversation.

If the expectation is clear, the process is documented, ownership has been defined, change has been properly managed and someone has been given the support they need, then we have every right to hold them accountable for what happens next. If they repeatedly choose not to follow the process or aren't delivering what is expected, then yes, we may genuinely have a performance or people issue.

Understanding people doesn't mean lowering the bar. Managing change properly doesn't mean everybody has to agree with every decision. Documenting a process doesn't remove personal responsibility.

For me, it's about making sure we've done our part as leaders before deciding somebody else is the problem.

So the next time the conversation turns to people not taking ownership, resisting change or failing to communicate, it might be worth looking a little deeper before reaching the conclusion.

Understand the person, make the expectation clear, manage the change and give people a process they can actually follow. Then hold them accountable.

Because sometimes you absolutely do have a people problem. But sometimes the person is simply the easiest thing to blame.