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The Best Athlete Trap: Why your top performer is struggling to lead your Transformation

ByJoost Boehlé

As published on LinkedIn

Promote to Punish

Every organization has a star and when the time comes to do something big you want your star to hold the reins.

Let’s call him John. He is your best operations manager. He knows the organization inside out. As he is the ‘best’ and you want this to be a business-led project, you appoint him to lead your new digital transformation project.

You are confident you put your best athlete on the track.

Six months later the project stalled. The vendor is running circles around him. And John? He’s on the verge of resigning.

Domain expertise does not equal transformation leadership

The biggest mistake I see made when organizations select an internal project manager is that they select based on subject matter expertise (knowing how the business works currently) when they actually need a Transformational leader (knowing how to change the business for tomorrow).

Your star athlete John knows operations. He does not know:

  • Change Management
  • Steering Committee Politics
  • Risk Governance
  • Vendor Contract Management

John is drowning because you failed to empower him. You threw him in the deep without a life jacket.

A Double Loss

This mistake creates a massive double loss for the organization:

  • You lose the project: Without professional governance the scope inevitably creeps and budgets explode.
  • You lose key talent: The stress of failing in high-visibility role pushes your best expert out of the business.

Scaffold your Talent

The answer is not to hire an external project manager who doesn’t know your business. You need the internal subject matter expertise to be successful. However, you need to scaffold your internal PM from day one.

At Coalex we believe in wrapping your leaders in a structure of success:

  • The Governance Framework (Coalex Launchpad): Provides your PM with a stable foundation, a clear-cut pre-build governance framework, that prevents him from inventing the wheel while the wagon is rolling.
  • Shadow Coaching: Provides your star athlete with a ‘shadow coach’, a behind the scenes expert who guides them on stakeholder management, reviews their steering committee decks and functions as a confidential sounding board.
  • Mandate: Ensure that C-level respects the new role, not just the old one. Empower them to make decisions.

From Burnout to breakthrough

Your transformation project should be a career defining opportunity for top talent, not a career ending one.

When C-level leaders ensure that proper scaffolding is in place your star athlete is empowered to evolve into a true transformational leader.

You appointed your star athlete, but have you given him / her the tools to be successful?

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