We Keep Asking the Wrong Questions About Behavior

What if the problem isn’t the person, but the system producing the behavior?

Photo by Andri Aeschlimann on Unsplash

We’re trained to look at behavior and assign blame. To label it. Control it. Fix it.

But what if behavior isn’t the problem?

We spend a lot of time asking: “What’s wrong with this person?”

We spend far less time asking: “What happened to this person?”

And even less time asking: “What happened inside this system?”

When a child shuts down in school.

Or a patient becomes escalated.

Or a young person escalates in custody.

Or an employee storms out of a meeting.

The default response is often:

Control the behavior. Document the behavior. Punish the person. And move on.

But behavior doesn’t happen in isolation.

Behavior is a clue. It is communication.

And it happens in context.

Sometimes the context is:

• Overstimulation
• Under-resourced
• Rigidity
• Disconnection

In other words, people feel unsafe.

Not necessarily physically unsafe, but relationally unsafe.

And it becomes predictable.

So people learn to adapt.

And when they do, we call the adaptation the problem.

Perhaps we should stop asking: “What’s wrong with people?”

And start asking: “What is this system producing, how and why?”

Because the answers to these questions will help us stop treating adaptation as dysfunction.