The People Problem Paradox (A Truby Tip about Dealing with Team Problems)

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Last Updated on January 21, 2025 by Bill Truby

Struggling with team challenges? What if the real issue isn’t “who” but “what”? In this quick Truby Tip, uncover why people problems might actually be process problems—and how to fix them for good.


Video Transcript:

If you’ve heard me talk at all, you hear me talk about the fact that people drive process, and it’s absolutely important to fix your people before you can fix your processes.

In fact, our Truby Management System has that approach. We help fix teams. We help fix people problems. First, we align them, and then we move forward into process.

And you probably know this: the number one problem leaders and managers have are people problems. I hear that all the time from experience. You can see it in research. In fact, we wrote a book to help with that. It’s called Curing Leadership Insomnia, using the Truby Management System to fix what keeps you up at night. And it has to do with building a high-performing team and using the four phases of the Truby Management System: transform, organize, mobilize, and optimize, which is the process that you go through, the phases that you go through to deal with your people and process.

However, my emphasis on people problems has a twist. Once you develop a high-performing team, and here’s what I mean.

We see all the time, organizations that have what they call people problems—John, Mary, Susan, Betty, Peter—they’re the problem. When in reality, the real problem that exists has to do with some kind of a process issue.

If you start looking at the problems that you have in your operations, ask yourself: what is the problem rather than who is the problem? And I’ll bet you you’ll find that there is something that pops up that is causing the person to have the problem.

For example, lack of having a clear org chart with roles and responsibilities clarified causes people to overstep their bounds, causes people to let things slip through the cracks simply because the org chart isn’t clear.

Maybe somebody’s not being efficient, and it could be because you don’t have an efficiency system that’s designed.There may be some issues where somebody didn’t know what they were supposed to do. That’s a communication issue. In fact, I find that one coming up a lot.

When you ask, you step back and you go, what is the problem here? Often it’s lack of communication or lack of clear communication or lack of communication to the right person, the right message, the right information at the right time.

Now, it’s probably obvious if you have a dysfunctional team or a person that really is a dysfunctional person in the team, yeah, that’s a who problem, and you need to take care of that, either the team as a whole or the person that is causing problems.

However, once you take care of that—and we have plenty of tools for you to do that—then from then on, ask: what is the problem? We’ll get distracted by focusing on a person, beating somebody over the head, trying to send them to training, trying to deal with the person, when in reality, there’s an infrastructure problem.

So ask yourself: what is the problem first before you ask who is the problem? I find that most of the time it’s a what problem, not a who problem. Rarely is it a who problem.

And if you identify a what problem, that’s something clear and specific you can deal with. Give the person who owns that what the responsibility to take care of it—to develop a better information flow system, to clarify the org chart, to build efficiency systems, to find the direction through a visionary strategic plan, to figure out what the next goal is.

Those are the what problems. You can deal with those. And then the who in your team can dive in and work on the what to make you more successful.

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Bill Truby

Founder and President of Truby Achievements