ORGANIZATION · 6 min read
When a People Problem Is a System Problem
If three capable people have failed in the same role, the role is the problem. Organizational health decides what survives turnover.
Leaders reach for personnel explanations first, because personnel explanations come with an obvious action: replace, coach, or reassign.
System explanations are slower and less satisfying — and far more often correct.
The three-person rule
If three capable people have struggled in the same seat, stop evaluating people. The role has unclear decision rights, competing accountabilities, or no realistic capacity.
The same rule applies to processes: if a workflow keeps failing under different owners, the workflow is the failure point.
Test for fragility, not performance
Healthy organizations survive absence. Ask what would stall if any single person were unavailable for thirty days. The list you produce is your real risk register.
Document the top three, and you have converted a dependency on individuals into an organizational capability.
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