Are the Conditions Supporting the Desired Behavior? Stop blaming training when the system is the problem
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Most training doesn’t fail because employees didn’t learn.
It fails because the organization made the right behavior harder than the wrong one.
That’s the uncomfortable truth behind many stalled initiatives. Employees attend training, pass assessments, and leave with clear expectations—yet performance barely moves. Not because people are resistant or disengaged, but because the system they return to quietly rewards something else.
In the Diagnose First, Train Second framework, the first three questions are designed to stop organizations from reacting too quickly. Leaders confirm that a real performance problem exists, determine whether it is worth fixing, and rule out quick fixes like clarification, job aids, or coaching. These steps prevent unnecessary training and protect credibility.
By the time an organization reaches the next question, the problem is real, persistent, and costly. At that point, the diagnostic lens must shift away from individual capability and toward organizational design.
The question becomes:
Are the conditions supporting the desired behavior?
Why This Question Changes Everything
Many leaders assume that once expectations are clear, performance will follow. In practice, behavior is shaped less by intent and more by systems, constraints, and consequences. Employees can fully understand expectations and still fail to meet them—because the environment makes compliance impractical. When that happens, training becomes a placeholder solution: visible, expensive, and ineffective.
This is the point where performance diagnosis must shift away from individuals and toward the system they operate within.
What to Examine—Honestly
Answering this question requires leaders to scrutinize the signals the organization sends every day, including:
Incentives and consequences – What behaviors are rewarded, tolerated, or punished?
Workload and time pressure – Is there a realistic capacity to perform as expected?
Competing priorities – Are employees forced to choose between goals?
Performance metrics and scorecards – What actually counts?
Manager reinforcement and modeling – What do leaders do when pressure hits?
These elements speak louder than policies or training decks. When systems contradict stated expectations, employees will follow the system—every time.
When the System Undermines Performance
Many persistent performance problems exist because the system penalizes the very behavior leaders say they want.
Employees may be trained to follow a process but rewarded for speed.
They may be told to prioritize quality but evaluated on volume.
Managers may endorse new standards—until deadlines loom.
In these cases, employees aren’t resisting change. They’re responding rationally to their environment. Training delivered under these conditions doesn’t improve performance—it increases frustration, cognitive load, and skepticism about future initiatives.
The Leadership Decision Point
This question acts as a diagnostic gate.
If system conditions are blocking the desired behavior:
· Fix the system first
· Adjust incentives, metrics, or workload
· Align manager behavior with stated expectations
Do not design training yet.
Training people to work around broken systems teaches the wrong lesson: that performance problems are individual failures rather than organizational design issues.
What Comes Next—and Why It Matters
Only after expectations are clear, quick fixes have failed, and the environment genuinely supports the desired behavior, does it make sense to examine skill or capability gaps.
When training appears this late in the diagnostic process, it is no longer speculative. It is targeted, necessary, and far more likely to transfer to the job. This is how organizations stop spending on activity and start investing in performance.