“If it’s important, don’t ask the team to try harder. Fix the system.”
(Seth Godin, Redundancy and Resilience)
Most founders do the opposite.
Something goes wrong. A missed detail, a sloppy handoff, or a preventable mistake. The response is predictable: we need to be more careful. Let’s double-check next time. Everyone needs to step it up. Continuously uttering these phrases doesn’t actually move the dial. Everyone is ALREADY being careful for the most part. The question is, why isn’t it working?
It sounds reasonable. And it’s also the reason the same problems keep happening. You’re trying to solve for effort, not reliability.
Effort Doesn’t Scale
People are inconsistent because they’re human. They forget things, interpret instructions differently, avoid uncomfortable conversations, and assume someone else has it covered.
So when your business depends on people “being more careful,” you’ve built something fragile. It might work on a good day, with the right people, under ideal conditions.
Redundancy is What Makes Things Work
Grown-up companies don’t rely on heroics. Instead, they build in backup because they understand reality.
Offer letters get reviewed twice. Onboarding follows a checklist. Performance issues are documented as they happen, not reconstructed later from memory. Key decisions are written down once, so they don’t get debated differently every time they come up.
It’s risk aversion, and it’s a lot cheaper than fixing mistakes after they’ve already caused damage.
When founders say:
- “They should know this by now.”
- “We already talked about it.”
- “This keeps happening.”
What they’re describing is inconsistency in how the work gets done. If the outcome varies, the system is the problem, not the person.
Get Different Results
Avoid thinking, “Why did they mess this up?” Instead, consider:
- Where are we relying on memory rather than on process?
- Where does ‘common sense’ mean different things to different people?
- Where does one small mistake turn into a bigger issue?
Those are the activities to tackle. Add a checklist or a second set of eyes. Document the decision once so you don’t have to solve the same problem five times.
Do it once. Stop paying for it repeatedly.