Stop Managing by Intervention. Start Managing by Design.

When things go side­ways in a com­pa­ny, most man­agers step in, roll up their sleeves, and start chas­ing prob­lems. That’s what I call ​“man­age­ment by inter­ven­tion” — and while it can work for a while, it’s exhaust­ing and unsustainable.

Great com­pa­nies don’t rely on hero­ic man­agers to hold every­thing togeth­er. They build smart sys­tems that dri­ve results — with­out con­stant reminders or supervision.

That’s the dif­fer­ence between man­ag­ing by inter­ven­tion and man­ag­ing by system.

Less Polic­ing, More Performance

Now, don’t con­fuse sys­tems with bureau­crat­ic rule­books. I’m not talk­ing about turn­ing your peo­ple into robots.

True man­age­ment sys­tems empow­er peo­ple. They cre­ate struc­ture with­out strip­ping auton­o­my. They give teams the clar­i­ty, vis­i­bil­i­ty, and account­abil­i­ty they need to self-cor­rect, in real time.

That’s the mag­ic of what Jim Collins calls cat­alyt­ic mech­a­nisms—tools or process­es that make the right behav­iours hap­pen, automatically.

Exam­ples of Cat­alyt­ic Mechanisms

Some of my favourites:

• Gran­ite Rock gave cus­tomers the pow­er to change their invoic­es if deliv­er­ies were late or faulty. That ​“short pay” sys­tem made teams hyper-account­able — and turned every issue into live feedback.
• Rack­space promised ​“fanat­i­cal sup­port.” If a client wasn’t sat­is­fied, their issue esca­lat­ed auto­mat­i­cal­ly — up to the CEO’s phone if nec­es­sary. No fin­ger-point­ing. Just built-in urgency and ownership.
• Lawrence & Co.: If clients aren’t hap­py, they don’t pay. It’s in our con­tracts. We rarely need to invoke it, but it keeps our team laser-focused on deliv­er­ing real value.

These mech­a­nisms aren’t just clever — they’re cat­alyt­ic. They cre­ate account­abil­i­ty with­out rely­ing on dai­ly man­age­ment muscle.

Why Cat­alyt­ic Mech­a­nisms Work

They’re pow­er­ful because they:

• Reduce man­age­ment overhead.
• Trans­fer account­abil­i­ty to the front lines.
• Cre­ate fast, hon­est feed­back loops.
• Align cul­ture with action — prov­ing you mean what you say.

And most impor­tant­ly, they make great per­for­mance inevitable, not optional.

Chal­lenge

What’s one cat­alyt­ic mech­a­nism you could imple­ment that would:

• Thrill your cus­tomers, and
• Force your team to deliv­er at their very best? 

That’s your work.

Because real lead­er­ship isn’t about con­stant­ly step­ping in. It’s about build­ing a busi­ness that works bril­liant­ly — even when you’re not in the room.

Resources

• Do Your Core Val­ues Accu­rate­ly Reflect the Cul­ture of Your Company
• The Over­looked Build­ing Blocks of Growth
• Stop Being Chief Prob­lem Solver
• Mak­ing Your­self Useless
• Why You Need a Core Purpose