Stop Fixing People, Fix the Environment
Systems shape behavior more than advice
👋 Hey, Carlos here! Welcome to “The Holistic Leader”, your weekly source of simple and honest leadership, Agile, Management & team insights.
In my years working in tech. I’ve worked with all kinds of teams.
Some in Fortune 50 and 100 companies.
Some in startups fighting to stay alive.
You learn how to work with structure.
Follow the process.
Stick to the system.
That’s helpful—until you’re in the trenches with a small team,
limited time, and no backup.
That’s where I learned something important:
Most problems aren’t about the people.
They’re about the space they’re working in.
Most people want to do a good job
They want to feel useful.
They want to contribute.
They want their work to matter.
So when someone keeps missing deadlines,
or avoids speaking up,
or pulls back from responsibility…
The question isn’t:
“What’s wrong with them?”
It’s:
“What’s going on around them?”
Systems shape behavior
Let me show you how:
People rush → because everything is urgent
People don’t speak up → because it doesn’t feel safe
People stay quiet → because they’ve been ignored before
People avoid owning things → because they’ve been overruled
What do we usually do?
We give advice.
We push harder.
We offer training.
We schedule more 1-on-1s.
But it doesn’t stick—because the setup hasn’t changed.
So what should we do?
Stop trying to fix the person.
Start fixing the environment.
Here’s where to look:
Is the work clear or chaotic?
Can people say what they really think?
Are we rewarding honest effort—or just looking busy?
Do people feel safe to try—or afraid to fail?
You don’t need to guess.
Ask your team:
“What makes it hard to do good work here?”
That one question can change the room.
A shift that changed how I lead
I used to ask:
“Why don’t they care more?”
Now I ask:
“What in this setup makes it hard to care?”
That shift from judging to understanding helped me stop spinning my wheels
and start supporting people in the right way.
Try this
Think about one thing that’s frustrating you right now.
Then ask:
What might be causing that?
What’s in the system that could be shaping that behavior?
You might see it’s not a people problem.
It’s a setup problem.
Final thought
It’s easy to point at people.
It’s harder to look at the environment.
But if you care about your team and if you really want to help them grow.
Start with the space they’re in.
Change the system.
Then see who your team becomes inside it.
That’s leadership.
And it starts with you.
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Thanks for reading
See you next week!
- Carlos✌️
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