When Your Team Doesn’t Follow the System — Driven for Success Episode 36

So you’ve taken the time to build these processes, and your team still isn’t following them.

It’s frustrating because now you’re thinking, “What is the point of all this if no one actually follows it?” But here’s the truth. There are only a few reasons why this happens, and most of them are fixable. You know, you’ve spent the time building the processes, you’ve explained it to everybody, and people still go off the reservation on it. That doesn’t mean your system doesn’t work. It just means we have to refine it and remind people.

Welcome to Driven for Success, the podcast where we help trucking company owners and executives run their business with better processes, less chaos, and lower driver turnover. I’m your host, Mike Ritzema, founder of Superior Trucking Payroll Service, where our mission is simple: to help trucking families. This podcast is part of the way that we execute our mission. If you have any questions about any of that, you can go to truckingpayroll.com and learn more.

And today, we’re answering the next logical question. What do you do when people don’t follow the system?

In previous episodes, we talked about the bottleneck of the owner. We’ve talked about what the real role of the owner is, and that it’s not making every decision, it’s teaching people to make decisions. It’s coming up with strategy, things like that. But now we’re dealing with the cold, hard reality of, “I built this system, and people are still messing it up.” It’s enough to make you crazy, isn’t it?

The main thing is there’s really 3 reasons why someone doesn’t follow a process. If someone isn’t following the process or following your system, it’s not random. There’s always a reason.

The first reason is they didn’t know. They didn’t know that this process was supposed to be followed. They didn’t know it existed. They weren’t properly trained, or they didn’t see it, or they genuinely forgot it was a problem. This is not, “I forgot,” like, “The dog ate my homework.” This is they really forgot there was a process for it.

And if they didn’t know, really didn’t know about it, that’s not a people problem. That’s a communication problem. And that’s on you as the owner, as the leader of this process.

This is where a lot of systems fall apart. They’re not actually accessible. You know, if your system is a whole bunch of random Post-it notes, or you walked by the office once and said to them as you were walking by, “Hey, make sure we charge detention on that customer from now on,” or it’s buried in the two hundred email chain that no one’s looked at for 4 months and is buried in everybody’s inbox so far, they’re never going to find it. Or if it’s something people have to ask you where to find, you know, that’s not a system. That’s just information scattered around.

If people can’t easily find the answer, they’re going to come back to you for it. And the whole point of all of this exercise is that they don’t come back to you for it, that your answer is clear in the process or in the system that you’ve built.

So if they’re not following the process because they didn’t know, most of the time, that is an awareness problem, and that is a structure problem. Structure of how, where you’re putting these things. Uh, if you use a CRM, maybe it goes in there. Maybe it goes in your TMS. Again, I’m thinking of an example like following the process for detention billing. Where does it go? Uh, make sure it’s where they’re going to see it and train them to see it. It happens more than you think, but it’s fixable.

The next problem is they found the process. They attempted to execute said process, and you still didn’t get the result you wanted. Uh, a lot of reasons for this. The process could be vague, it could be unclear, it could be confusing, and it doesn’t match real situations.

If it uses words like always and never, unless you mean a hundred percent always and never, then don’t use always and never. Use usually. Use most of the time. You know, if people keep breaking the rule the same way, the rule is probably the problem, and the rule needs to be absolutely clear. Because a system that no one follows is like a gym membership in February. It’s paid for, but it’s gathering dust and not really servicing anyone.

Uh, my business coach, Jeff, from Results on Purpose, says to me all the time, and I’ve said it before on the podcast, “Be clear about what you want.” He has drilled that into my brain. Well, is your process, is your policy clear about what you want, clear about the outcome that you’re trying to achieve? And not just clear to you. It was clear in your head when you wrote it. It needs to be clear to the person reading it.

And a great way to do that is have someone read the policy who’s not necessarily familiar with executing it and say, “Does this make sense to you? Do you have any questions about this? Uh, is there anything here that’s unclear?” And you’ll get some good feedback.

And then take it to the people who have to execute it and go, “Is this policy clear? You understand what you have to do here, do you have any questions?” And they should understand it right away, hopefully, because you’ve already vetted it once, but maybe there is something else that’s unclear, and you can help them fix it.

We just want to be really clear about the outcome we want, because it’s the outcome that really is what we’re measuring. Did we charge the right amount of detention? To use the detention example that I keep going back to. Did we pay the driver the right amount? Those kinds of things. Those should be automatic decisions, and that’s why you wrote that process.

So, you know, you signed up this process, you meant to use it, but it’s not actually working. Those are signs of what a system looks like when it’s not being followed. Your team is trying to tell you something there. You need to listen. You may need to simplify it, clarify it, or just adjust it to reality. But in any event, all these systems can be adjusted. And if they’re not clear to the person who has to follow it, then they absolutely have to be adjusted.

Now let’s go to the third one. So they knew about the policy, the policy was clear, and they still didn’t follow it. Oh my goodness. Before you react at that person who chose not to follow the policy, you need to ask them why. Help me understand why you knew there was a policy about detention for that customer. The policy was clear, right? You still didn’t do it. Walk me through how that worked.

And you’re going to get really 3 buckets of reasons. There’s going to be a good reason. “Well, this and this and this, and so I made the decision to do this.” And you might be okay with it, you might not. Or it might be an eh reason. Uh, they were mad at me because their sports team lost or something. I don’t know, something silly. Or, “I thought you wanted…” You know, “I thought that you only wanted to charge that in certain situations,” but that would be the policy not being clear. Or just any weak reason. You know, there’s that, and then there’s just really no reason.

So if you get a good reason, if you get a reason of they applied all of the things that you would want to apply, and they still got to the wrong answer, then we just need to improve the system. We just need to make it better. We need to kind of take out that part where they went off the path we wanted them to go and bring them back.

If they use a weak reason, this is a coaching opportunity. This is a time for you to go, “Yeah, I understand what you’re thinking, but that thinking is not what we do here. So we want you to do it this way.” You’re just coaching them. It’s like they ran a play in football, and it didn’t work out. Okay, they missed their block. Okay, well, let’s coach them up on that and make sure they don’t do it again.

That’s really the key too, especially with the weak reasons. If they do it once, okay, there’s a coaching opportunity. If they keep doing it, then it’s really not a weak reason. It’s really the third category, which is no reason.

No reason is the worst, but it’s also the easiest to fix. If someone consistently ignores clear systems, that’s not confusion, that’s a choice. That’s them deciding that they know what’s best more than you. And for whatever reason they do it doesn’t even matter at that point. You’re going to need to move on from them if they continue to do that. Or at least the first time you explain to them, you know, “You might be invited to work somewhere else if you do that again, because I told you exactly what to do, you understood what to do, you knew the rule existed, and you still didn’t do it.”

In wrestling, they called that going into business for themselves. Uh, and I can tell you, too, sometimes it’s hard to have to make that decision to invite someone to work somewhere else, which is a really nice way of saying firing them.

But I was at a payroll conference in Portland, Oregon, 9 years ago, I think, and Lou Holtz spoke, the famous college football coach who just recently passed away. And he was talking about coaching at Notre Dame, and they had a championship game coming up. They were, I mean, Notre Dame was incredible. This is in the late ’80s, early ’90s. They were always on top. Lou Holtz had brought them back to prominence.

He had a couple players that got suspended for the championship game for not going to class or something academic related. And you would think, man, you’re really hurting the whole team by not letting these 2 guys play. And what he said was, “I didn’t suspend them. They suspended themselves. We had rules that we all agreed on. You know, the captains of the football team were in on the process, the coaches, all the players agreed on them, and these players made a decision not to follow them. So they made a decision that they wanted to not follow those rules more than they wanted to actually play in the game. ‘Cause we said these rules are absolutely required, and if you don’t do them, you will not play. And they didn’t follow those rules, and so they didn’t play.”

And he was absolutely adamant that they suspended themselves. And I thought that was a great way to look at it.

Most of the time when you’ve got an employee where you’re thinking about, “Should I keep them? Should I not?” and you don’t, if you’re somebody who doesn’t really love confrontation, and you’re somebody who wants to see the best in everybody, and I understand these things, these people fire themselves. You were clear about what you expected in the policy. They made a decision not to follow that policy. They are telling you, “I don’t want to work here anymore.” And honestly, you’re going to do them a favor if you let them.

I could do a whole other episode about this, how to terminate an employee and how that all works, and it would probably be a worthwhile episode. Maybe we’ll come back to it in a little while. But that’s the short story, is they are terminating themselves.

So yeah, again, if you have clear systems and someone chooses not to follow them, they’re making a decision about whether they want to be a part of how your business operates. And at that point, it’s not about the system anymore, it’s about fit, and clearly they don’t fit. Maybe they’ll fit better somewhere else.

Let’s take a look at how this works in real life. You’ve got a policy around detention. Someone handles it differently than your system says. And most people go, “Why didn’t you follow the process?” But instead, run it through this filter. Start with, did they know that the rule existed? And then, was the rule clear? Especially think about their situation. Was there some extenuating circumstance that had to be accounted for? Um, or did they choose something different? Did they know the rule existed and the rule was clear and they chose to go another direction?

The same situation can look identical on the surface, but the reason behind it changes everything. Uh, you know, a policy doesn’t get followed. We didn’t charge detention on that load. Okay. Well, that can happen, and probably does happen quite often, unfortunately. But, you know, if an employee didn’t know that there was a rule for that customer, that’s a training issue, and it’s fixable. If they knew and chose differently, that’s a whole big problem because you don’t fix the outcome, you fix the cause.

The outcome is done. It’s happened. The invoice is already sent out. You may or may not be able to amend it. That’s up to you. But you really want to fix the cause because you don’t want to have these things happening again and again.

Let’s talk about how to have this conversation, ’cause this is where most owners struggle. What do you actually say when this happens? Because your response determines if the system gets stronger or weaker. It’s really important. The system has to prevail here.

If they didn’t know the rule existed, and you also made sure that they looked where they should have looked, and it just wasn’t there, okay. That’s on us as management. Let’s make sure this is easier to find next time. And then you figure it out.

And if it’s unclear, ask them, “Walk me through how you interpreted this. We may need to revise that rule.” And then have the conversation.

If they chose differently, and this is the tricky one, “Help me understand your reasoning here.” This question will tell you everything you need to know. Again, if they have good reasoning, the system needs to be improved. If they have poor reasoning, it’s a coaching opportunity. It’s an opportunity for you to give feedback to your employee to make them follow the rule next time. And if they have no reason, “I just didn’t want to. I just didn’t feel like it. It was too much work. Too much work adding a line into the TMS saying they have a detention for two hundred dollars.” Something silly like that.

It’s about accountability, and it’s about explaining to them, if you choose to, that, “Look, these systems are meant to be followed, and your not following them is a indication that you don’t want to work here anymore. And if that’s the case, then we can be done. But if you want to work here, you’re going to have to follow those systems that we’ve built. Do you understand?” Just even an easy conversation like that. And their response to that will tell you everything you need to know about whether they want to stay or not. If they’re a little bit contrite, okay. If they’re arguing with you, they don’t want to.

Your response teaches them how seriously you take your systems, because if you’re not going to take them seriously, there’s no point. They’re just like a mission statement nobody looks at ever again on the wall.

Your goal is not just to build systems. It’s to build a business where people actually follow the systems. It requires clarity, accessibility, reinforcement, and accountability. Easy things to understand. They require a little bit of work to execute. You just have to be consistent about it, and you’ll get the results that you want.

If you’re working through this right now and you’re trying to get your systems clear, accessible, and actually followed, we’ve got resources on our website that walk you through how to structure this in a practical way. You can go to truckingpayroll.com. There are podcast links for all the other episodes there. You can find those. We’ve also written a number of articles in our Learning Center that go through this as well, and we hope they help get you through the journey.

So again, you can go to truckingpayroll.com, and you’ll find all the resources you need.

A system only works if people can actually use it. That’s the thought I want to leave you with. And if you fix this, your systems will actually start working, and when your systems work, your business can grow. How great is that?

So, thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next week.