Chapter 2. Systems Drive People

Ordinary people working with extraordinary systems deliver extraordinary results. To put it another way, systems, not people, drive 95% of what goes on within an organization. I realize that this is a lot to swallow right up front, but read on to see why I make such a bold statement.

If you want to change your results, you change your cultural systems.

Obviously, we are not talking about just information or computer systems. We are talking about a much broader view of systems—cultural systems. The culture we live in is a system. A system is cause and effect: If this, then that. The cultural structure is the system that drives a given organization and the behavior of its people.

People learn very quickly what is acceptable ...

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