Roadblocks to Success - Part 3

​After many years of hard work building a positive reputation, Jules and her team were suddenly struggling to keep up with customer demand for their services. As the client relationship manager, Jules met with customers to identify their specifications and report back to the development team. She also managed all communications with the client during testing and implementation. 
Jules was outstanding at her job, and her customers loved her. She was able to understand the nuances of her customer's operations. She had extensive knowledge of her company's technology. Her proposals combined these into customized solutions that often delivered beyond the client's expectations.
Unfortunately, Jules was not feeling as successful in her personal life. She found herself booting up her laptop around 10 pm several nights each week, resuming work while her family wrapped up the day and headed to bed. Jules used this time to tweak customizations to the technology so that it worked for the client exactly as she promised it would. 
As the pace of the work grew, so did Jules' frustration that her team failed to deliver what she envisioned for the client. She also sensed that her team's resentment was growing as they continued to see their work altered by her. They argued that they didn't receive enough information in the specifications to complete their job correctly. Jules shook her head in dismay when she heard this. She didn't want her team to act as order takers. She wanted them to bring creative thinking to the process.

After Jules shared this story with me during our coaching session, I asked her to tell me more about the work that kept her on her computer late into the night. She stated that she reviewed the team's work before implementation. When she found issues, she felt compelled to correct everything herself because the deadline was looming, and she didn't want to risk being late. From her point of view, the time required to explain the needed changes to someone on her team took longer than the time for her to do the work herself. 

Jules had fallen into a pattern that is common for many leaders with  technical expertise. I call it the hero's trap. ​The heroism comes from her commitment to the client, which compels her to work late into the night to make everything perfect. 

This repeated decision becomes a trap, however, because it robs her team of the opportunity to learn about their mistakes. Jules is missing the teachable moment with her team. She is leaving on the table the possibility to increase the capability of the organization. Instead of growing with her, their knowledge deficit widens and keeps them trapped in the cycle of not delivering to Jules' expectations.

Breaking free of the hero's trap is tricky and requires a commitment to change by everyone involved. Through our coaching conversations, Jules identified that she wanted to don her hero's cape to empower her team rather than rescue their work.

• She learned to engage her employees in more meaningful conversations that began during the hand-off of client projects.
• She committed time in her schedule to review the work more frequently so that she could share insights and redirect efforts earlier in the process.
• And, when deadlines were upon them, Jules learned to hold her team accountable for altering their schedules to complete the work themselves.

​Jules had to let go of her self-image as the person who delivered for the customer. Now she was responsible for creating, maintaining, and growing an organization that shared ownership for that customer experience. As Jules embraced her new role, she watched her team step up and thrive.