Conventional managers think many of their problems are to do with the people, hence we find enormous sums being spent on things like ‘empathy’ training, ‘one-to-one’ training, ‘coaching’ and ‘team leadership’.
Many service organisations adopt a policy of hiring good people managers, acknowledging specifically that people managers don’t need to know about the work.
It is to work on the 5%; it is an enormous waste of human talent.
The paradox is: when managers learn to work on the 95%, the system, their people light up.