Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and Goala giving.
Speaker 1: This is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host
Speaker 1: Paul fella Aledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode seven twenty nine. Today we're talking about something uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: when seconds matter and processes fail. If you've spent any
Speaker 2: amount of time leading people, you have probably seen this happen.
Speaker 2: A process was built with good intentions, a checklist was created,
Speaker 2: a policy was approved, a committee met, training happened, and
Speaker 2: everyone agreed this would prevent problems. And then reality showed
Speaker 2: up and the process failed. Now, before we go any further,
Speaker 2: I am not anti process. I lead in environments where
Speaker 2: processes save lives. There is a reason pilots use checklists.
Speaker 2: There is a reason ambulances have protocols. There's a reason
Speaker 2: command systems exist. Processes matter until it doesn't, and great
Speaker 2: leaders know the difference. I want you to imagine something.
Speaker 2: A company has a customer service process. Step one, open
Speaker 2: a ticket, Step two, assign a department, Step three, supervisor review.
Speaker 2: Step four is usually escalation. Step five is a response.
Speaker 2: Everything looks beautiful until the customer calls and says, my
Speaker 2: system is down and I'm losing fifty thousand dollars every hour.
Speaker 2: Now the process becomes the problem because everyone is protecting
Speaker 2: the system instead of solving the emergency. Or imagine a hospital,
Speaker 2: or an airline, or a restaurantunt or a public safety agency.
Speaker 2: Someone notices something dangerous, but instead of acting, people start
Speaker 2: asking who owns this? Did you submit the form? Did
Speaker 2: you notify leadership? Can we wait until Monday? That is
Speaker 2: process becoming paralysis and leaders need to understand something. The
Speaker 2: purpose of process is speed with consistency. The purpose of
Speaker 2: process is not obedience. There is a difference. One of
Speaker 2: the hardest lessons I learned over the years in leadership
Speaker 2: is this people often confuse following procedure with achieving outcomes.
Speaker 2: Those are not always the same thing. There is an
Speaker 2: old emergency services mindset that translates beautifully into leadership. Treat first,
Speaker 2: document second. That does not mean ignore accountability, That does
Speaker 2: not mean become reckless. It means recognize the moment. Because
Speaker 2: some moments are routine, other moments are red key moments,
Speaker 2: moments where delay costs more than imperfect action. And this
Speaker 2: is where weak organizations struggle. They train employees to stay
Speaker 2: inside the process, they do not train judgment. Some employees
Speaker 2: become afraid, afraid to act, afraid to move, afraid to own,
Speaker 2: afraid to make the wrong call. Then the organization starts
Speaker 2: saying things like why didn't someone do something because nobody
Speaker 2: gave them permission to think. There's a phrase I use
Speaker 2: with leaders. Processes should create guardrails, not railroad tracks. Guardrails
Speaker 2: keep you safe while allowing movement. Railroad tracks remove options.
Speaker 2: The problem with railroad track leadership is reality never stays
Speaker 2: on the tracks. And I'll give you another example. Your
Speaker 2: employee comes to you there's a customer issue, there's a
Speaker 2: staffing issue, there's a safety concern, and you tell them
Speaker 2: follow the process. Three hours later, the problem gets worse.
Speaker 2: Now you're frustrated, but think carefully, did they fail or
Speaker 2: did you accidentally teach them that compliance mattered more than
Speaker 2: outcomes because leaders train people every day, whether they mean
Speaker 2: to or not. You train what gets rewarded, You train
Speaker 2: what gets tolerated. You train what gets celebrated. If someone
Speaker 2: saves the day and you punish them for skipping step
Speaker 2: four on a form, don't act surprised when nobody takes
Speaker 2: initiative next time. And now there is another side to this.
Speaker 2: Some leaders hear this and go too far. They become
Speaker 2: processed rebels. Everything becomes gut feeling, everything becomes improvisation. That
Speaker 2: creates chaos. You cannot run an organization entirely on instinct.
Speaker 2: The answer is not process or judgment. The answer is
Speaker 2: p us with permission, Permission to escalate, permission to adapt,
Speaker 2: permission to stop the line, permission to say this is
Speaker 2: outside the normal operating environment. Pilots do this. They train
Speaker 2: for emergencies because checklists are amazing until something unexpected happens,
Speaker 2: and then experience communication and command takeover. That's leadership. It's
Speaker 2: not abandoning systems, it's leading beyond them. So here's something
Speaker 2: practical you can do this week. Take one process in
Speaker 2: your organization, only one, and then ask your team these questions.
Speaker 2: If this process failed tomorrow, what would we do? Who
Speaker 2: has the authority to override it? What conditions trigger adaptation?
Speaker 2: How quickly can we move? If nobody knows the answers,
Speaker 2: you have to work to do so, because your organization
Speaker 2: may be optimized for normal days and completely exposed during
Speaker 2: important moments. And here's the final thought. Your people are
Speaker 2: when something goes sideways. They're not measuring how beautifully your
Speaker 2: policy manual reads. They're measuring whether leadership showed up, whether
Speaker 2: leadership adapted, whether leadership made decisions, and whether leadership protected outcomes.
Speaker 2: Process creates order, leadership creates movement. When seconds matter, your
Speaker 2: people do not need a traffic cop. They need someone
Speaker 2: willing to take responsibility. That is the difference, and that
Speaker 2: difference changes everything. So leadership is not proven when conditions
Speaker 2: are perfect in every box gets checked. Leadership is revealed
Speaker 2: in the gap between the process and reality. The question
Speaker 2: is not whether your process will fail. Someday it will.
Speaker 2: The question is what your people will do when it does.
Speaker 2: So train judgment, reward ownership, build systems that move, because
Speaker 2: when seconds matter, people remember who acted. This has been
Speaker 2: the seven minute Leadership podcast and I thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul Fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot com.