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 Felloledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode seven ninety one. Today's episode is called Systems
Speaker 2: that Remove Heroics. Every organization has that one person, the
Speaker 2: employee who always saves the day, the paramedic who somehow
Speaker 2: manages every impossible call, the IT technician who fixes every
Speaker 2: computer crash, the office manager who knows every password, every vendor,
Speaker 2: every process and every answer. And the salesperson who rescues
Speaker 2: every major account. We celebrate the people, and we should.
Speaker 2: They're talented, they're committed, they're dependable. Here's the leadership question
Speaker 2: that I want you to think about today. Why does
Speaker 2: your organization need rescuing so often? Heroics make for great stories,
Speaker 2: systems make for great organizations. There is a dangerous trap
Speaker 2: that many leaders fall into. They mistake repeated heroics for
Speaker 2: organizational excellence, and it isn't. If your business constantly needs
Speaker 2: someone to save it, your systems are failing. Imagine boarding
Speaker 2: an airplane where the captain says, don't worry everyone. Every
Speaker 2: landing is an emergency, but I'm really good at pulling
Speaker 2: us out at the last second. You would get off
Speaker 2: that airplane immediately. You don't want exceptional landings, you want
Speaker 2: predictable ones. That's exactly what your employees want too. The
Speaker 2: highest performance organizations rarely look dramatic. Everything appears almost boring.
Speaker 2: The checklist gets completed, the equipment works, the communication flows,
Speaker 2: People know their responsibilities. Problems are identified early. Small corrections
Speaker 2: happen before they become major failures. That's all leadership, not
Speaker 2: because people became less talented, because the system became more reliable.
Speaker 2: In emergency services, we have a saying. We don't rise
Speaker 2: to the occasion we fall back on our training. Training
Speaker 2: is simply a system. Checklists are systems. Policies or systems.
Speaker 2: Daily routines are systems. Morning briefings are all systems. After
Speaker 2: action reviews are systems too. Every one of them exists
Speaker 2: to reduce dependence on individual brilliance. Think about the pit
Speaker 2: crew in Formula one racing. They change four tires in
Speaker 2: about two seconds. People watch that and think they're witnessing magic.
Speaker 2: They're not. They're witnessing thousands of hours of system refinement.
Speaker 2: Every movement has been practiced, every position is defined, every
Speaker 2: tool has a location. Nobody is improvising, nobody is trying
Speaker 2: to become the hero. The system is the hero. Now
Speaker 2: compare that to many workplaces. One employee knows how payroll works.
Speaker 2: Another knows how to restart the server. Someone else knows
Speaker 2: where the contract is. One supervisor remembers every customer's preferences
Speaker 2: because nothing is documented. Leadership congratulates these employees for going
Speaker 2: above and beyond. And meanwhile, every vacation creates panic. Every
Speaker 2: retirement becomes a crisis. Every resignation feels like a natural disaster.
Speaker 2: That isn't resilience, that's dependency. And one of my favorite
Speaker 2: leadership questions is this, if this employee disappeared tomorrow, what
Speaker 2: would happen. If your answer includes words like chaos, confusion, delays,
Speaker 2: nobody knows. You've identified a system failure, not an employee problem,
Speaker 2: a leadership problem. Real leadership isn't about creating indispensable people.
Speaker 2: It's about creating indispensable systems. The military understands this, Aviation
Speaker 2: understands this, hospitals understand this. High reliability organizations also understand this.
Speaker 2: The process has to survive the person. That's why pilots
Speaker 2: use checklists. Even after thousands of flights. Nobody says, I've
Speaker 2: landed enough airplanes. I don't need a checklist anymore. Experience
Speaker 2: doesn't replace systems. Experience respects systems. Sometimes leaders accidentally reward heroics.
Speaker 2: The employee stays late every night, everyone applauds. The supervisor
Speaker 2: answers emails until midnight, and everyone calls them dedicated. The
Speaker 2: manager fixes every scheduling mistake and everyone says they're amazing. Well,
Speaker 2: maybe or maybe the scheduling process is broken, maybe the
Speaker 2: staffing model is outdated, Maybe expectations aren't clear, maybe training
Speaker 2: never happened. The applause hides the real problem. The hero
Speaker 2: becomes the patch covering the crack in the foundation. The
Speaker 2: danger is that patches eventually wear out. People burn out,
Speaker 2: they retire, they transfer, they get sick, they leave. Then
Speaker 2: the organization suddenly discovers that all of its success was
Speaker 2: sitting inside one person's head. That's a terrifying business strategy.
Speaker 2: And here's something I encourage every leader to do. Once
Speaker 2: each month, identify one recurring problem. Ask yourself one question,
Speaker 2: what's system would make this problem less likely to happen again.
Speaker 2: Notice I didn't ask who caused it. I asked what
Speaker 2: system could prevent it. That's a completely different conversation. Instead
Speaker 2: of blame, you're designing. Instead of punishment, you're improving. Instead
Speaker 2: of waiting for another hero, you're building an organization that
Speaker 2: doesn't need one. The strongest cultures aren't filled with superheroes.
Speaker 2: They're filled with ordinary people operating inside extraordinary systems. That's
Speaker 2: how consistency is created. That's how quality improves, that's how
Speaker 2: trust grows. Every employee feels safer because expectations are clear.
Speaker 2: Customers receive predictable service. Leaders sleep better because success no
Speaker 2: longer depends on hoping the right person shows up every day.
Speaker 2: And there's another hidden benefit. Great systems create future leaders.
Speaker 2: When work is organized well, new employees learn faster. Supervisors
Speaker 2: spend less time putting out the fires. Experienced employees spend
Speaker 2: more time coaching instead of rescuing. Leadership becomes scalable. Your
Speaker 2: organization becomes stronger every year instead of becoming more fragile.
Speaker 2: So here's today's leadership challenge. This week, look around your organization.
Speaker 2: Find one place where someone is constantly saving the day.
Speaker 2: Don't start by thanking the hero Start by asking why
Speaker 2: the rescue keeps happening. That question may uncover the biggest
Speaker 2: opportunity your organization has been missing, because leadership isn't measured
Speaker 2: by how many fires you put out. It's measured by
Speaker 2: how many fires never start because you built the right
Speaker 2: system in the first place. So if this one made
Speaker 2: you think about the hidden dependence your organization has on
Speaker 2: a few key people, share it with another leader. Start
Speaker 2: the conversation about replacing repeated heroics with repeatable systems. Great
Speaker 2: organizations don't depend on luck, They depend on disciplined leadership
Speaker 2: in systems people can trust every single day. If you
Speaker 2: want more free leadership resources, head over to paulfallovalito dot
Speaker 2: com and click on free Stuff. I have over twenty
Speaker 2: five free leadership documents you can download and start using today.
Speaker 2: This has been the seven minute leadership podcast, and I
Speaker 2: thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul Fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot
Speaker 1: com