Human Factors Are Always the Largest Factors
The most expensive leadership development mistake isn’t what you think.
It’s not picking the wrong training program. It’s not hiring the wrong coach. It’s not even choosing the wrong skills to develop.
It’s forgetting that leadership problems are human problems. And human problems are always bigger than technical problems.
In today’s newsletter, I’ll share why “soft skills” is the worst phrase in business, and what you should focus on instead.
But first, a story about claims, keyboards, and human factors…
The Claims Processing Bottleneck
Back in my consulting days, I got called into a healthcare company that was struggling. They’d bought a high-tech claims processing system that looked great in demos.
The problem? The “happy path” wasn’t a high enough percentage of their actual claim flow. Too many claims required manual intervention, creating a massive bottleneck.
Here’s what I discovered: to understand how to fix it, I had to learn their manual repricing process. That involved lots of manual lookups, data entry for new providers, calculations — the works. It was slow, especially given their volume.
But they had one asset: an archive of scanned claim images.
I built a solution that leveraged what they already had. I created a scan quality estimator so they could rescan poor-quality images before giving them to people (printer ribbons wear out, making claims harder to read). Then I built a highly optimized keyboard interface that let operators quickly link just enough information from the claim image to reprice and move it along.
The key insight? I reimagined their manual flow while leveraging their scanning infrastructure and focusing on the human factors in the core “inner loop” of the human-machine interface.
The results were dramatic. Claims started moving. The team caught up on their backlog. People at one office started calling me “Captain I.T.” and even made me a cape.
But here’s what hit me: the technical solution worked because I focused on the human factors first.
That’s when I crystallized my core principle: The human factors are always the largest factors.
Impact Skills, Not “Soft Skills”
I hate the phrase “soft skills.” Hate it.
These aren’t soft skills. These are impact skills. If you want to make an impact, you’re going to need these skills.
Think about the Apollo moon mission. Massive technical challenges, right? Rockets. Navigation. Life support systems. Engineering marvels.
But organizing all those people to achieve that result? That was bigger. Way bigger.
The human factors are always the largest factors.
Why Technical Leaders Miss This
I spent 20+ years in technical leadership at Apple, Amazon, and beyond. Here’s what I learned:
Technical problems have clear solutions. Human challenges require patience, empathy, and genuine commitment to serving others.
When projects fail, it’s rarely because the technology didn’t work. It’s because:
- Communication broke down between teams
- Requirements weren’t understood by the people doing the work
- Expectations weren’t aligned across stakeholders
- Trust was missing between leaders and implementers
- People weren’t bought into the vision
These aren’t secondary concerns. They’re the primary factors that determine whether your technical solutions actually work.
The Aviation Parallel
Research on aviation accidents reveals the same pattern. It’s not usually mechanical failure that brings down planes. It’s communication failure in the cockpit.
Pilots who don’t speak up when they see problems. Co-pilots who defer to authority even when they know something’s wrong. Teams that don’t share critical information clearly.
The planes work fine. The human systems fail.
Same pattern everywhere: however large your technical challenge, the human factors are larger.
Engineering’s Best-Kept Secret
Here’s what I learned from decades in engineering leadership: If there aren’t trade-offs, you aren’t doing engineering.
“You can make that part stronger, but the stronger material is heavier, and it already weighs too much.” That sort of thing.
But here’s the secret most engineers miss: the biggest trade-offs aren’t between materials or algorithms. They’re between human needs.
Speed vs. accuracy. Autonomy vs. alignment. Innovation vs. stability. Individual performance vs. team cohesion.
The human factors are always the engineering constraint that matters most.
What This Means for Your Leadership
Every leadership challenge you face is fundamentally a human factors problem:
That execution gap? People don’t have clarity, capability, or commitment.
That innovation slowdown? People aren’t seeing clearly, thinking boldly, or implementing systematically.
That scaling problem? The human systems can’t support what the technical systems need.
That strategy confusion? People aren’t aligned on vision, priorities, or decision-making authority.
Technical symptoms. Human root causes. Every time.
The Leadership Superpowers Reality
This is exactly why I developed the Leadership Superpowers framework around human capabilities.
Among them:
- Vision — Helping people see possibilities they couldn’t imagine
- Coaching — Growing others for their benefit
- Charisma — Creating environments where people want to contribute
- Service — Ensuring others receive value they can feel
- Suasion — Creating understanding and commitment, not just compliance
- Integrity — Being trustworthy when no one’s watching
- Tenacity — Persisting through obstacles that stop others
These aren’t the “nice to have” skills you develop after you master the technical stuff. These ARE the skills that determine whether your technical expertise creates impact.
Your Reality Check
Right now, think about your biggest organizational challenge.
Is it really a technical problem? Or is it that the right people aren’t aligned, equipped, motivated, or clear about what needs to happen?
I’ll bet it’s the latter.
Because processes don’t deliver projects. People do.
Systems don’t drive results. People do.
Technology doesn’t solve problems. People using technology solve problems.
And people — with all their needs for clarity, trust, motivation, and support — are always the largest factors in any equation.
The Bottom Line
Stop treating human factors as secondary. They’re not soft skills — they’re impact skills.
If you want to make a real impact as a leader, master the human factors first. Everything else follows from there.
The human factors are always the largest factors.
Your Next Step
Here’s what I’ve discovered through decades of technical leadership: Most leadership advice fails because it ignores context.
The same communication training that transforms one leader falls flat for another. The delegation workshop that works for a startup founder confuses a Fortune 500 director. The strategic thinking course that elevates a technical leader bores an operations manager.
Why? Because the human factors that matter most depend entirely on your specific situation.
I’ve systematized this insight into a framework that identifies which leadership capabilities create maximum impact for your exact context. It’s how I help leaders stop wasting time on generic development and start focusing where it counts.
The human factors are always the largest factors. But knowing which ones to develop first? That changes everything.
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Best,
— Gregor
