Back in 2011 I attended an event called BMoreFail which was a business seminar on business failure, taught by guest speakers who had all failed at something, and I had a revelation.
If your system would work fine if people Just Would, but it does not work because people Donāt, and you feel very strongly that it works but people are not using it right and if only they Just Would everything would be fine⦠your system is a failure. Because if people were capable of Just Doing, they would be doing. The fact that people Donāt is an indication that they, in fact, cannot Just Would.
I was thinking of this in terms of workflow systems in business, but itās just as meaningful in the systems you create for yourself that would work if you Just Would. Because if you Could, then you already Would. The fact that you Donāt even though it would work if you Just Would means that you in fact Canāt and you need to redesign the system.
That doesnāt always make it easier to figure out a system that will work, but it does tell you something about how to deal with the repeated failure of the system. Change it. The system is always whatās broken, not the people in it. Systems exist to serve people; if they cannot serve people because people canāt use them, they are wrong and must be changed.