# Stop Trying to Fix Your People - Change the Environment

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/in-the-arena-with-doortwo-7549574/stop-trying-to-fix-your-people-change-the-environment
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/in-the-arena-with-doortwo-7549574/stop-trying-to-fix-your-people-change-the-environment.md
Podcast: [In The Arena With DoorTwo](https://stenobird.com/podcast/in-the-arena-with-doortwo-7549574)
Published: 2026-06-10T15:05:00+00:00
Episode link: https://doortwo.com/podcasts/in-the-arena/
Audio file: https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/da32b3f1-38c3-4550-9935-e07f4617e94f.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/in-the-arena-with-doortwo-7549574/episodes/stop-trying-to-fix-your-people-change-the-environment
Duration seconds: 2109

## Resource

What if you are the problem? Or maybe more accurately, what if the environment you are creating is shaping the exact behavior you are trying to change? As leaders, we spend a lot of time trying to influence other people by focusing on them. Why won’t they speak up? Why aren’t they taking ownership? Why are they disengaged? So we coach. Correct. Challenge. Give feedback. But what if the better lever is not the person? In this episode of In the Arena, Shaun and Steph challenge one of the most common instincts in leadership: the instinct to fix people first. Because behavior does not happen in a vacuum. And the thing shaping it may be something leaders have more control over than they realize. 🎧 Be sure to follow this podcast wherever you are listening! ▶ Watch the full In the Arena series: In The Arena with DoorTwo Podcast 📬 Get our weekly leadership newsletter: DoorTwo Leadership Newsletter 🏢 Learn more about DoorTwo and our work: DoorTwo.com Chapters 0:00 Intro: leaders bring the "weather" 0:40 Behavior = Person × Environment (the 94/6 rule) 2:49 Why the room shifts when a leader walks in 3:47 "But I'm the same everywhere" — the church test 6:19 How environment and behavior feed each other 7:51 You ARE the environment for your team 8:29 The weather you bring home 10:43 Presence: autopilot vs. on purpose 12:08 How to read the room (the "open-door" leader story) 15:06 Designing environments on purpose 17:48 Content vs. process: running better meetings 20:47 This isn't about being "nice" — and does it affect results? 24:49 The 24th-floor experiment & owning your presence 28:07 Two doorways: fix the person or change the environment 31:39 Lazy leadership, the 1% shift & where to start 34:53 Wrap-up

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## Transcript

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