How to set people up for success?

Over the past weeks, I’ve had three conversations where my conversation partner mentioned the phrase:

“We’ve set this person up for failure.”

Otherwise said, we’ve failed ourselves to set this person up for success.

But that sentence you won’t hear very often. Both sentences imply the same, but only one puts the blame directly on the people responsible for this person’s success.

Almost always, when someone fails in a position, the root causes lie somewhere else.

Of course, it’s always possible that somebody does not perform well and is the cause of failure.

But even then, the question remains when those who put him in this position have done their homework.

More often than not, they haven’t done their homework.

If it’s a new position, how clear are you, as a decision maker, what the expectations are for the job?

Not the person, the position. How does the position fit your strategy? Have you put the proper structure in place to justify the position?

Questions to answer before we even start discussing a person filling the position.