It’s Not Personal. It’s Systems.™

It’s Not Personal. It’s Systems.™

The leadership lesson that took me years to understand.

Long before It’s Not Personal. It’s Systems.™ became part of the Carlson Consulting Collective philosophy, it was a sentence said to me by someone who was trying very hard to teach a twenty-something-year-old version of me how strong practices actually work.

That someone was my longtime mentor, who today happens to be Carlson Consulting Collective’s very own Senior Strategic Advisor.

At the time?

We were butting heads.

Tess had a way she wanted something done.

I had my way.

Or, if we’re being completely accurate, I probably had less of a way and more of a general belief that I should be able to figure it out as I went.

I was young, still relatively new to the industry, a little whimsical, and hadn’t yet learned to appreciate why experienced leaders could be so particular about processes.

And finally, Tess said something along the lines of:

“Meghan!!!!

This isn’t personal. It’s not about doing it my way. It’s SYSTEMS.”

Did twenty-something-year-old Meghan immediately recognize this as a defining leadership lesson that she would carry for decades?

Absolutely not.

But Tess planted a seed.

And over the years, it grew.

The Lesson Eventually Landed

The longer I worked in practices, the more I began to understand what she had been trying to teach me.

A strong system isn’t about control.

It isn’t about one person’s preferred way of doing something.

And it certainly isn’t about creating rules simply for the sake of having rules.

Systems create clarity.

They establish what needs to happen, who is responsible for it, how the work moves, and what a successful outcome looks like.

Without that clarity, something interesting happens.

Operational problems start becoming people problems.

Why didn’t she do that?

I thought he was handling it.

Nobody told me.

That’s not how I was trained.

I always do it this way.

I thought someone else followed up.

And suddenly leaders find themselves correcting the same problems, having the same conversations, and becoming increasingly frustrated with their people.

Sometimes there truly is a performance problem.

But sometimes?

It’s not personal. It’s systems.

Before You Correct the Person, Look at the System

This has become one of my strongest leadership instincts.

When something repeatedly isn’t working, I want to know what sits underneath it.

Was the expectation clear?

Was there actually a process?

Does someone own the outcome?

Was the team trained?

Is there an unclear handoff?

Does the process depend on one person’s memory?

Could another team member step in tomorrow and know what to do?

Because accountability matters.

But I believe we have to give people something reasonable to be accountable to.

That’s the part of Tess’s lesson that eventually landed for me.

And it’s why today, the C.C.C. philosophy is:

It’s Not Personal. It’s Systems.™

Fix the system. Train the system. Then hold people accountable to the system.

From One Sentence to a C.C.C. Method

That seed planted decades ago has now grown into something much larger.

As I’ve continued leading teams, building operations, and helping practices work through the friction that inevitably comes with people and processes, I’ve developed my own methodology around that original lesson.

And it became the foundation for two new Carlson Consulting Collective resources.

The Practice SOP Checklist™ is a complimentary resource designed to help practice leaders begin identifying the systems they have documented, the ones that may need attention, and the gaps they may not have realized existed.

And for leaders ready to go deeper, The Practice Systems Builder™ takes the conversation beyond simply writing SOPs.

Because knowing that you need a system is one thing.

Knowing what deserves attention first, who should own it, how the work should actually move, and how you create meaningful accountability around it is something else entirely.

That’s where systems leadership begins.

The Seed You Don’t Know You’re Planting

There’s something wonderfully full-circle about building this philosophy into C.C.C. all these years later.

Tess probably had no idea that one frustrated conversation with a young employee would stay with me.

I certainly didn’t.

But that’s one of the beautiful things about mentorship.

Sometimes the lesson lands immediately.

Sometimes it takes a few years.

And apparently, sometimes it takes a couple of decades, a consulting company, and a trademark.

Tess was right.

It wasn’t personal.

It was systems.

And I’ve been building on that lesson ever since.

Ready to Look at the Systems Inside Your Practice?

Start with The Practice SOP Checklist™, a complimentary C.C.C. resource designed to help you identify what’s documented, what may need attention, and where operational gaps may exist.

Ready to go deeper?

The Practice Systems Builder™ takes you beyond identifying the gaps and into the work of building clearer, stronger, more accountable systems.

Explore Practice Resources at carlsonconsultingcollective.com

Carlson Consulting Collective
Leadership • Operations • Legacy