Blame the process

Unless we work in a perfect organization, there are workplace situations we don’t like.

In fact, there are situations no one likes. It could be how people are onboarded, how expenses are reimbursed, how approvals are obtained, the safety of the parking lot, how strategy is (not) communicated, etc.

In these situations, we tend to blame the person responsible for the lengthy approval or for the poor communication, when in fact a process is to blame.

For sure, people are responsible for processes. They create them. But it’s much easier to change a process that it is to change a person. In fact, one way to change a person is by changing the processes they are subject to.

When we dislike a situation, we ought to blame a process over a person. We can rally others around our fix more easily.

Culture is an outcome of our processes, of how we do things. If we want to change culture, we need to change how we do things.

Pretty simple.

We can all look around today and find a situation we really don’t like. Then, we can identify the process at the source of our dissatisfaction. How can we tweak it to generate a better outcome, a better culture?