Fix The Floor, Not the Person

When something isn't working, the instinct is to focus on the person who is struggling.

Add support. Increase coaching. Create a performance plan. Focus on the individual.

And sometimes that's exactly right.

But sometimes, more often than most organizations want to admit, the person isn't the problem. The conditions are. And no amount of coaching, feedback, or individual intervention will fix a structural problem.

Simon Sinek spent years studying what separates teams that thrive from teams that don't. In Leaders Eat Last, he argues that the most fundamental job of a leader isn't strategy or vision. It's building what he calls a Circle of Safety, an environment where people feel protected, valued, and equipped to do their best work. When individuals consistently underperform in the same environment, the first question should be about the environment. A system that keeps producing the same struggling people isn't a people problem. It's a floor problem.

Signs the floor might be the problem:

●  The same issue keeps appearing across different people in the same role or setting.

●  New people come in with energy and confidence, and within six months look like everyone else.

●  Coaching and feedback produce temporary improvement that doesn't hold.

●  People who succeed elsewhere struggle here.

Reflective Questions

●  Think of a recurring performance problem on your team or in your life. Is it possible the conditions, not the person, are producing it?

●  What would it look like to examine the environment before examining the individual?

●  If you removed one structural obstacle for your team this week, what would it be?

Listen to Episode 3 of Move Toward: Unlocked for the story of a young teacher who had everything and still struggled, until someone finally asked what was getting in the way.