I’m always on the lookout for catchy titles, so of course Crappy People Vs. Crappy Systems caught my eye.
This tendency to look for individual goats — and heroes — isn’t just a problem that permeates the world of sports. It is reflected in many misguided ideologies and management practices, which focus excessive energy on hiring stars and weeding-out mediocre and poor performers, and insufficient energy on building a great system that enables most competent people to succeed.
While I don’t disagree (I’m one with the idea that systems matter), there are some people who are, well, crappy workers and simply aren’t going to work in any system that works for most other people. And no, I’m not going to name names, but we’ve all worked with people who in fact lower total production because they get little or nothing done themselves and cause their co-workers to spend time and effort to fix the crappy workers mistakes.
But I think Mr. Sutton is entirely correct that systems have much more impact on workers than workers on systems, so companies are better off perfecting the system than trying to find the perfect worker. I’m reminded how Enron was big on finding stars and we all know how that turned out.
