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The people most common to enter this state are people who don't trust their co-workers to do the right thing and instead get involved so heavily that in the end

The people most common to enter this state are people who don't trust their co-workers to do the right thing and instead get involved so heavily that in the end they are pulling all the strings. You may call them "control freaks". Sometimes branding themselves as "perfectionists". When reading his story it became apparent that that's likely his problem. Unless literally everybody in his org was completely lazy (which, honestly, is unlikely), he clearly drowned other people's requests for help with "oh just get out of my way, I'll just do it myself" and there you go, next dependency on himself is introduced. Note that I'm not insinuating that it was on purpose. It's just the natural result of somebody not letting others do things, and fail and learn on their own on the way. Kudos for realizing that it's a problem and for pulling out of the process. But we only see his side of the story here.

Aeolun 5y ago
> It's just the natural result of somebody not letting others do things, and fail and learn on their own on the way. How is this supposed to work though? You can do it yourself and succeed, or you can allow others to fail. If others are constantly failing where you (feel like you) could have succeeded, that’s it’s own form of exhausting.
- wildmanx 5y ago
  That's right. That's a problem for management to solve though, not for the guy in the center who could have succeeded all over the place where everybody else keeps failing all the time. If that's really the case. It could also be the case that there are sometimes just different opinions, and one side of the argument is just more persistent and dominant and "just does it themselves", instead of accepting that a different solution would also have brought the org to a good result. Then that lone superstar gets frustrated (because they think they have to do things themselves), their colleagues get frustrated (because there is that guy that just does things on their own and better be quiet than pick a fight) and it's overall not sustainable for the org. Again, a problem for management to solve.
- codingdave 5y ago
  Yes, sometimes helping people learn means letting them make mistakes. Watching someone do something slowly and poorly can test your patience. But they'll be faster and better the next time. Have patience for them to learn, while being available to guide them when needed or when their mistakes would impact the customer.
tokamak-teapot 5y ago
I would say your assumption here is unkind and itself lazy. I have often seen this kind of situation and the cause has always been the same: The most senior in the organisation are ridiculously poor at building their org. They have hired someone who is pretty great at stuff and they got them by accident, for cheap due to some circumstance, and now attempt to grow without realising they got lucky. They hire net negative contributors and making it more difficult to deliver, not less. They cannot comprehend that there won’t be some magic that turns these people into productive and driven employees without their own growth in skills, attitude, and care in direction. They are likely incapable of such things. The person or people at the center of this are stuck, yes. They can’t spread their knowledge because others will actively avoid admitting the docs exist, or refuse to ask Google or another employee. They certainly can’t spread their attitude and skills because no-one else cares or has the incentive or ability to skill up. There is only one eventual route for the capable and driven: leave and go somewhere where there are better people in senior roles.
- wildmanx 5y ago
  If everybody around is relatively incompetent, then the superstar at the center can't fix that. The overall result that the org produces is based on everybody and eventually "regresses to the mean" of what everybody contributes. Management and also the superstar need to accept that. I write "relative" because it's a matter of perspective. Maybe from the superstars perfectionist perspective, the others are incompetent, but from the outside they are "good enough". Or maybe they are not, but the point is that there is a mismatch and the superstar needs to either accept that or leave. The third alternative, trying to lift things to the superstars (real or perceived) standard by "I'll just do it myself" is not sustainable and results in situations as in the discussed article.
  - tokamak-teapot 5y ago
    Yes, your conclusion that this person / people should leave is the same as mine. I’m also saying, however, that the person / people you’re describing as ‘superstar’ don’t have to be that at all. There doesn’t need to be a 10x contributor and lots of average people. Just a 1x contributor and lots of 0.01x or -10x people. Too many owners / managers believe that to grow your business you just need to add people, that they are great at hiring people, and everyone will just sort themselves out and work together. They are then surprised that this doesn’t happen, despite their faith in their own competence at making this happen. I’m not saying there aren’t perfectionists out there with an inability to share or unwillingness to let go. Just that the situation being described could be exactly as described and not just one side of a story.
xondono 5y ago
I think this isn’t justified. There’s people who are control freaks, but it’s not necessarily OPs case. In a product I delivered (I do hardware design), I helped the “firmware team” (one guy at that point) to get started because I was more experienced, and stuck helping with some small modules to get things ready for demos and things of that nature. Later the team expanded, so I let go of firmware development and went back to my work, and the code slowly changed to the point that I wasn’t really aware of what the device did in scenario X, much less how it did that. I still was the go-to guy when it came to questions about the device behavior for months, even if all my replies where “I have no idea, ask this people”. All it takes is for someone to say “that guy has been working on this since the beginning”, and a lot of questions will find your inbox when others are unsure about the answer.

Aeolun 5y ago

> It's just the natural result of somebody not letting others do things, and fail and learn on their own on the way. How is this supposed to work though? You can do it yourself and succeed, or you can allow others to fail. If others are constantly failing where you (feel like you) could have succeeded, that’s it’s own form of exhausting.

wildmanx 5y ago
That's right. That's a problem for management to solve though, not for the guy in the center who could have succeeded all over the place where everybody else keeps failing all the time. If that's really the case. It could also be the case that there are sometimes just different opinions, and one side of the argument is just more persistent and dominant and "just does it themselves", instead of accepting that a different solution would also have brought the org to a good result. Then that lone superstar gets frustrated (because they think they have to do things themselves), their colleagues get frustrated (because there is that guy that just does things on their own and better be quiet than pick a fight) and it's overall not sustainable for the org. Again, a problem for management to solve.
codingdave 5y ago
Yes, sometimes helping people learn means letting them make mistakes. Watching someone do something slowly and poorly can test your patience. But they'll be faster and better the next time. Have patience for them to learn, while being available to guide them when needed or when their mistakes would impact the customer.

tokamak-teapot 5y ago

I would say your assumption here is unkind and itself lazy. I have often seen this kind of situation and the cause has always been the same: The most senior in the organisation are ridiculously poor at building their org. They have hired someone who is pretty great at stuff and they got them by accident, for cheap due to some circumstance, and now attempt to grow without realising they got lucky. They hire net negative contributors and making it more difficult to deliver, not less. They cannot comprehend that there won’t be some magic that turns these people into productive and driven employees without their own growth in skills, attitude, and care in direction. They are likely incapable of such things. The person or people at the center of this are stuck, yes. They can’t spread their knowledge because others will actively avoid admitting the docs exist, or refuse to ask Google or another employee. They certainly can’t spread their attitude and skills because no-one else cares or has the incentive or ability to skill up. There is only one eventual route for the capable and driven: leave and go somewhere where there are better people in senior roles.

wildmanx 5y ago
If everybody around is relatively incompetent, then the superstar at the center can't fix that. The overall result that the org produces is based on everybody and eventually "regresses to the mean" of what everybody contributes. Management and also the superstar need to accept that. I write "relative" because it's a matter of perspective. Maybe from the superstars perfectionist perspective, the others are incompetent, but from the outside they are "good enough". Or maybe they are not, but the point is that there is a mismatch and the superstar needs to either accept that or leave. The third alternative, trying to lift things to the superstars (real or perceived) standard by "I'll just do it myself" is not sustainable and results in situations as in the discussed article.
- tokamak-teapot 5y ago
  Yes, your conclusion that this person / people should leave is the same as mine. I’m also saying, however, that the person / people you’re describing as ‘superstar’ don’t have to be that at all. There doesn’t need to be a 10x contributor and lots of average people. Just a 1x contributor and lots of 0.01x or -10x people. Too many owners / managers believe that to grow your business you just need to add people, that they are great at hiring people, and everyone will just sort themselves out and work together. They are then surprised that this doesn’t happen, despite their faith in their own competence at making this happen. I’m not saying there aren’t perfectionists out there with an inability to share or unwillingness to let go. Just that the situation being described could be exactly as described and not just one side of a story.

xondono 5y ago

I think this isn’t justified. There’s people who are control freaks, but it’s not necessarily OPs case. In a product I delivered (I do hardware design), I helped the “firmware team” (one guy at that point) to get started because I was more experienced, and stuck helping with some small modules to get things ready for demos and things of that nature. Later the team expanded, so I let go of firmware development and went back to my work, and the code slowly changed to the point that I wasn’t really aware of what the device did in scenario X, much less how it did that. I still was the go-to guy when it came to questions about the device behavior for months, even if all my replies where “I have no idea, ask this people”. All it takes is for someone to say “that guy has been working on this since the beginning”, and a lot of questions will find your inbox when others are unsure about the answer.