Read a sample · Fix the System

Why motivation cannot fix a broken work system

When work keeps slipping, it is tempting to ask people to care more. This passage examines that response and the practical limits of motivation when planning, scheduling, and feedback are missing.

Book excerpt by Ivan Getov · 318 words

From Chapter 2: The Job, and Why Most Plants Get It Wrong

The passage below is reproduced verbatim from Fix the System.

The third wrong answer is the one the leadership training industry has been selling for forty years. The job of the maintenance manager is to inspire the team to do better work. If the crew cared more, if the supervisors set the tone, if the technicians took ownership, if everybody bought in, the numbers would follow.
I almost hate to argue against this one because I understand where it comes from. Motivation is not nothing. A crew that believes in the work does that work better than a crew that has checked out. I have watched culture turn a dying plant into a healthy one. Culture matters.
But culture is an outcome of the system, not a substitute for it. You cannot motivate a crew into doing planned work when the planning process is broken. You cannot coach a supervisor into enforcing a frozen zone when no frozen zone exists. You cannot ask a technician to take ownership of a close-out form that asks them three meaningless questions. The system produces the behavior. If you want different behavior, install a different system.
The motivation answer is also, in practice, the one that most often gets pointed at individuals. If only we had a better lead. If only Mike had a better attitude. If only we could get rid of the old-timers and bring in fresh people. I have been in rooms where, after a year of declining performance, senior leadership concluded the problem was the maintenance manager and replaced them. New manager, same system, same decline. I have watched this happen twice in one plant, to two different managers.
Good intentions coexist with poor outcomes for a very long time, especially in maintenance shops full of capable people operating inside broken systems. Everybody means well. Nothing gets installed. The plant drifts.
The motivation answer mistakes the effect for the cause. Which is why it almost never fixes anything.