Managing SP processes instead of people

If you fix a process - you fix a problem, you make a system more efficient, and you make things overall "better"; however, what happens when the processes are perfect?  A truly well-oiled enterprise machine is cranking out quality material at great speed and then what?  I'm thinking about something:  a perfect process masks moral and ethical ineptitude in people.  This is a quandary for me:  should we focus on really trying to empower and encourage people and end users to be "better" or focus on fixing the process so that, no matter how bad a person one remains, the business and the processes run well?  This applies in regular business with IT, churches with pastors, political campaigns with staffers/candidates, etc.  I wonder if fixing the process doesn't really fix the problem some of the time if you really wanted better people in the first place.  What do you think?