Training doesn’t fix a commitment problem.

If I had a euro for every time a client said, “They just don’t care,” I wouldn’t be writing this. I’d be somewhere dressed head-to-toe in linen, drinking excellent espresso, pretending I don’t own a phone.

You can not train commitment, but design a workplace where professionalism is standard.

It almost always sounds like this:

“I’ve explained / shown / told them a hundred times and still…”
“They’re just not capable.”
“The second I leave the building, they can’t handle anything.”
“The place falls apart when I’m not there.”
“They just don’t care.”

I get it. Being the only adult in the room is exhausting. But it’s also only half the truth and one side of the story.

Sooner or later in during coaching sessions this narrative leads to the only question that actually moves the needle:

Do they have to care?

And the answer is evidently: It’s not their business. It’s yours.

So what should employees care about? Certainly they will never care about your margins as much as you. It’s not their job to protect you from sleepless nights. They are also not responsible for your five-year plan.

They should care about their own lane: the part they can truly influence. Their responsibility. Their impact. Their standard. And the deal they’re getting in return.

Here’s the real truth (or tea, what it is called today):

People don’t stay because they love your business.
They stay because your workplace is the best deal.

Clear. Well-paid. Calm. Predictable. And influenceable. It feels way better than the chaos next door.
A place where good work isn’t just demanded, but actually possible.

Step 1: Stop trying to “train commitment”

Most companies reach for training when what they really have is a design issue. These are actually two completely different challenges to tacle:

Skill gaps: “They don’t know how yet.”
Consistency gaps: “They can do it… it just doesn’t reliably happen.”

Training helps skills. Consistency comes from an environment where the right behavior is easy to repeat on a normal day, under normal pressure.

If you’ve “shown it a hundred times” and nothing changes, the best question isn’t: “What’s wrong with them?” It’s: “What’s making the right behavior hard in the day-to-day?”

Step 2: Accept the baseline (without drowning in guilt)

Not everyone becomes your dream employee, and that isn’t automatically a leadership failure. Sometimes it’s leadership. Often it’s the system. Sometimes it’s simply reality. People vary.

Four common reasons performance doesn’t land the way you hoped:

Fit: A role needs speed and conflict tolerance; a detail-driven person burns out at the front desk.
Capacity: Two people get the same process; one has headspace, the other is in a heavy life season and can’t carry more.
Motivation: Someone is reliable, gets promoted, and quietly hates the people-lead part, so it gets avoided.
Willingness: The standard is clear, support exists, feedback was given, and they still choose not to comply.

Your job isn’t to force everyone into excellence. Your job is to set standards, support performance, and make fair calls (adjust the role, redesign the work, or separate cleanly) when the standard consistently isn’t met.

The model behind “nothing works without me”

Here’s the unsexy formula behind “This place collapses when I’m gone”:

Performance = Ability × Opportunity × Motivation

It’s a multiplier. If Opportunity is broken, training and good intentions won’t save you.

Opportunity (the setup): the most common reason “it only works when I’m there”

Opportunity means time, tools, clarity, support, and processes that make people able to act.

When it’s missing, the same pragmatic failures show up everywhere. Not because people are dumb, but because the system forces them to choose between bad options (and believe me, I have done all these mistakes myself. Often):

Example: Five approvals, but the boss is in meetings all day
That reliably creates one of three outcomes:

Nothing happens (work stalls, customers get annoyed, deadlines slip)
People improvise (“I’ll just do it” → errors / compliance risk)
It gets postponed (“later” → later becomes chaos)

Other classics:

No clear priorities: everything is “urgent,” so teams live in firefighting mode and quality gets cut.
Unclear decision-making: nobody owns the call, so work bounces around until it dies of exhaustion.
Missing tools/material: people patch problems instead of solving them, and mistakes multiply.
No usable escalation path: issues get raised too late or not at all, and land on you again.

In short: Opportunity is the difference between “the team could do it” and “the team can do it in this system.”

If you constantly create Opportunity by rescuing everything yourself, you’re not just the leader. You’re the operating system. And the moment you leave, it crashes.

Step 3: Make ownership real, and make it human

A lot of companies already have SOPs. They already talk about ownership. They already “loop” weekly. And still, the hallway trash stays on the floor.

Because the real missing ingredient often isn’t more process. It’s usable standards, social norms, and decent leadership. And yes: decency is operational.

Employees aren’t “resources.” They’re the people who keep your business running. Treat that with the uttermost respect.

Show your people the uttermost respect, they keep the ship afloat.

Ownership starts with your ownership

If you want employees to act like professionals, you have to lead like one. Model the standard you expect. Remove blockers you created. Split load fairly when reality hits. Treat people like partners, not replaceable parts. You can’t demand ownership from people you treat like an inconvenience.

The “sick colleague” test

Someone’s sick. The work still needs doing. In weak cultures, this becomes resentment and “not my job.”

In strong cultures, leaders do something simple: They redistribute the load visibly, and they don’t exempt themselves (without turning themselves into the Fire Brigade):

“Okay. You take A. You take B. I’ll take C.”
“Here’s what we drop so nobody breaks.”
“We’ll review tomorrow and adjust.”

That’s how you build team ownership. Fairness people can see.
I’ve seen GMs end “that’s not my job” conflicts in five minutes by scrubbing BBQs when the kitchen was severely understaffed. Not because that’s their permanent role, but because it sends a message everyone understands: We protect the operation. We don’t abandon each other.

The hallway trash problem

Unfortunately with that being said, there is another issue sneaking in: When “everyone is responsible,” responsibility often evaporates into: “nobody ACTS on the responsibility”.

There’s a piece of trash on the floor. Everyone is technically responsible. Nobody picks it up. Happens everywhere all the time. Why?

Responsibility dilutes: When everyone owns it, nobody feels responsible.

Initiative feels risky: In some cultures, you get punished for “overstepping” (“That’s housekeeping’s job”). So people learn: ignoring is safer.
The real rules are invisible: If speed always wins, quality loses — even if nobody says it out loud.

Here’s how you fix it.
Make the norm crystal clear: “If you see it, you own it.”

A sentence people actually use in daily work — not just on slides.

You pick it up and say, calmly: “Quick reset. This is how we do it here.” People don’t believe what you say. They believe what you tolerate. Then:

Micro-praise, instantly and specifically: “Thank you. Exactly that.”
Friendly calling-in: “Can you grab that?” (no shaming, no eye-rolls)
Team commitment: “Here, everyone picks up trash. Period.”
Then it’s not “the boss wants this.” It’s our standard.

Ownership also comes with clear area of responsibility and bullet-proof guidelines, we all know that. But we also know, that 17253567 pages of “SOP.2026_final_V4” are rarely read er even remembered and a Company-Wiki might not come in handy in stressful situations. Sooooo the golden rule is always:

SOPs must be stress-proof: 10 seconds, not a novel

If it can’t be remembered in ten seconds under pressure, it doesn’t exist.

Example: Mini-SOP

See it? Pick it up.
Can’t? Flag it immediately (channel/person).
Keeps happening? Fix the cause (bin too far, bin too full, missing routine).

Then: Looping, but the right way

Not only “What went well?” but:

Where wasn’t the standard applied?
Why? (time, clarity, risk, tools, ownership)
What do we change so it’s easier next time?

That’s how “ownership” becomes a system: visible, usable, repeatable.

Step 4: Make impact personal

One dashboard per team, one number they can move. Not twenty KPIs.

The rule: people must understand it and feel “My work moves this.” Otherwise it’s just reporting theater.

Housekeeping: “Rooms passed first check” (no re-clean) → less rework, calmer shifts.
CSAT: pick one driver the team controls this week (response time, resolution quality, tone) → review weekly: “What changed, what moved?”
Project Management: “Handover quality” = % of handovers using the checklist (owner, next steps, deadline, risks) → fewer meetings, fewer loops, fewer “I thought you were doing it.”

When impact is visible and influenceable, people stop feeling like passengers and start acting like owners of their lane.

Step 5: Build pride with recognition that actually matters

Most companies only praise the best outcomes. That’s a mistake. If you only celebrate big numbers, people learn: “Only stars matter.” Instead, reward commitment to the standard, the behaviors that create results.Make recognition a ritual:

“standard of the week”
“saved-the-day” story
peer shoutouts (short, specific)

And make it tangible: give leaders a small recognition budget. Half day off, gift card, small bonus, first choice on shifts. Not huge. Just real.

When people feel their professionalism is seen, and occasionally rewarded in ways that matter, pride shows up. Pride is a performance engine.

The point: be the best deal

In many industries, people can move fast. Fear is weak currency.

Retention and performance come from a better offer than the chaos next door:

clear: expectations are obvious
well-paid: effort is respected materially
calm: fewer avoidable fires
predictable: rules don’t change with moods
influenceable: people can actually affect outcomes in their lane
human: fairness, decency, and leadership that steps in when it counts

Then employees don’t have to “love your business.”

They care about their lane, because great work makes their day better. Healthier. Calmer. More respected. More rewarding.

They’ve got the better deal with you. So they stay.
And you get the better deal too: a team that works without you playing constant rescue.

Because people don’t rise to your expectations.
They fall to your design.

Let’s redesign ❤️

It’s not their business. It’s yours.