(2013-02-21) Intervention On People Issues Is A Red Herring

Bob Marshall: Intervention on People Issues is a Red Herring...*

... but a popular red herring amongst Western management thinkers.” ~ John Seddon

It’s not that people don’t matter, it’s that there’s a paradox here: change the system and behaviour change comes for free. Also known as “don’t work on the 5%“.

If a manager is trying to coach a member of their staff, they’re not only “working on the 5%”, they’re also likely distracting themselves from their real job by spending less time working on the system.

How likely is it that coaching, whoever is doing it, is merely helping people cope better (soft skills) with the dysfunctions of the systems they find themselves working within? Not that an improved ability to cope with feelings of e.g. frustration, disempowerment and disengagement is without merit. But maybe that’s not what folks are looking to coaching to deliver?