Escape the Doer Trap: 3 Simple Shifts to Instantly Get Unstuck

[00:00:00] What’s the number one thing holding you back from your real impact and influence as a leader or change practitioner? It’s getting stuck in the doer trap, and today I’m gonna show you three simple steps that you can take to instantly help you get free. Welcome the chain of learning, where the links of leadership and learning unite.

[00:00:21] This is your connection for actionable strategies and practices to empower you to build a people-centered learning culture, get results, and expand your impact so that you and your team can leave a lasting legacy. I’m your host and fellow learning enthusiast, Katie Anderson. Have you ever felt stuck, frustrated, and overwhelmed, realizing that you’re doing all the stuff that maybe you shouldn’t be doing?

[00:00:45] Or maybe improvements aren’t sticking. When you move on to a new project or your team members keep coming to you for your answer, you’re likely finding yourself in what I call the doer trap. And this can happen to all of us, whether you’re an operational leadership role, an executive, a change leader, an operational excellence consultant, or even as a parent, we all do it.

[00:01:08] And it’s related to the telling habit that I talked about back in episode 13. When we tell and give our answer, rather than letting others find their way to the answer. There are absolutely things that we all have responsibility for doing, but the doing trap. It’s when you’re taking over the responsibility for the doing of others, and this even happens in our home life.

[00:01:30] For example, the other week I realized I was defaulting and falling myself into the doer trap when one of my kids asked me questions about his homework project and I was running around feeling a bit busy and uh, a little under pressure with time. And so I just jumped in and started telling him the answer or what I thought was the answer and sort of actually starting to.

[00:01:49] To do some of the project with him, and I had to take this pause and stop and realize, whoa, I wasn’t actually serving the purpose by stepping in and doing his homework for him. I needed to help teach him the skills so that he could learn how to do this. So I took a pause and stopped. And it’s so easy for us to fall into this doer trap by starting to get involved in my son’s assignment.

[00:02:11] He’s not learning and growing and I’m really taking away that opportunity for him, and he’s gonna just keep coming to me for doing the doing. Of course, there are times to be more teaching and helping someone learn a concept, or if my child was really struggling there, but I literally was starting to jump in and take over his assignment.

[00:02:28] And we do this all the time in organizations. I’ve been hearing more and more from continuous improvement and operational change leaders and executive teams that I’ve been working with about this frustration they’re feeling and and uncertainty about why they’re feeling overwhelmed by how much they have on their plates.

[00:02:46] And frustrated that people aren’t taking responsibility or that changes that they’ve helped put in place just aren’t sticking the challenge. They’re falling into the doer trap. And you might be too. On today’s episode, I wanna give you three simple shifts to help you immediately escape this trap, and I’m gonna share some real examples about how a few of my clients have recently applied these shifts and seen a dramatic impact in just a few weeks.

[00:03:11] It’s that easy. But first, we have to understand what the doer trap is and why we find ourselves in it. If you’re a continuous improvement coach or a leader of a team, the linchpin in creating a sustainable, high performing organization isn’t about you doing it all, getting the results. It’s about the leaders and the people around you owning the doing and the progress with getting towards the results.

[00:03:37] It’s the same thing with parenting. So when you step into do mode, when it’s not your problem, project, or responsibility, you are taking away ownership from the other person, from the thinking, from the doing, and from the responsibility. If you really wanna create a continuous improvement, high performing culture, and you’re doing all the doing, you are standing in the way of the very outcome you want.

[00:04:02] And what’s the impact when you do the doing that you shouldn’t be doing? There’s not full buy-in. Maybe you find that you’re getting compliance without engagement. There’s mis learning and capability opportunities, and people are always coming back to you for the answer. There’s not sustainability of the actual results, so maybe you got a short-term result, but it’s not really sustaining and you’re finding yourself and your organization.

[00:04:25] Working on the same problem year after year, and it places the burden and responsibility on you. You’re like literally putting the problem into your backpack and weighting yourself down. The doer trap is the number one root cause I find when improvement projects are stalling out. Leaders are talking about burnout and CI facilitators are frustrated that they’re perceived as just the improvement doers and not influencing real sustainable change in their organizations.

[00:04:55] So how do you know when you’re falling into the doer trap? There are five common modes, and I want you to take a listen to each of these and reflect on which one you’ve fallen into. The first is the hero. You’re coming in to save the day, rushing into firefight, or be the expert with the answer. And everyone’s so thrilled that you were there to get it done, but.

[00:05:17] Not everything really needs your answer. There are some true emergencies that require heroic effort in immediate responses, but when we’re in the habit to see everything is a five alarm fire that needs us to swoop in and fix things, we habituate people to this role and we habituate it for ourselves. We are getting stuck in this vicious cycle of crisis mode all the time, which is what I talked about with Isaac Mitchell a few episodes ago.

[00:05:44] Does this sound familiar? Are you the hero? The second mode is rescuer. This is the mode of not wanting to see people struggle to not have the right answer immediately or to be uncertain about the next step. This comes from good intentions because we don’t like to see people struggle. We’re uncomfortable with it.

[00:06:04] This is a huge. Reason why we step into the telling mode where someone doesn’t have immediately the the answer or the next step, and we, so we just jump in and tell them, but we’re really taking away that responsibility of their ownership and we’re taking away the learning opportunity. The struggle comes in the learning, and so what we don’t want people to drown, of course, then that’s, we really, truly need to save someone.

[00:06:26] We need to be more comfortable with going through that learning process. This rescuer mode is something that I fall into all the time as a parent, and I really have to watch myself, and this is something that leaders and continuous improvement practitioners fall into all the time. The person they’re working with doesn’t have the answer right away, so maybe I ask one question, but when they don’t have the answer, know that the next step, I just start telling them, does this sound familiar to you?

[00:06:52] The third mode is magician. This is giving sort of a false sense of ownership to other people, but really behind the scenes you’re working your magic and getting it all done. So maybe there’s an appearance that other people are doing things, but really you’re shaping things all behind the scenes in a way that is taking away ownership.

[00:07:12] There is time for you to be shaping the thinking and the process, but this is when you’re actually really doing all the work and, and making it seem like others are are doing it. And this is something I see, uh, continuous improvement practitioners doing all the time. Maybe to get things done more quickly, I’m gonna just do a lot of the thinking, work behind the scenes and not engage the leaders in the process.

[00:07:34] So maybe presenting just like two options rather than bringing people along in the process as well. Have you found yourself in the magician mode? The fourth mode is pair of hands, and this is literally doing the doing, just getting it done. It’s faster to do it myself or doing it because this is what the leaders expect me to be falling into.

[00:07:53] They’re expecting a continuous improvement practitioner to just be the doer of improvement work. This is when we get more focused on getting the result or the project or the problem solved or done and not helping keep the ownership with the people who actually. Should own the doing. This is the one of the number one traps I see with continuous improvement practitioners, especially if they moved into this internal or external consulting role from an independent contributor role.

[00:08:23] When you get stuck in this pair of hands role and when you’re doing all the tasks, you start losing influence and transformational leadership potential. How about you? Have you been falling into the pair of hands, do or trap? And the fifth mode is surrogate leader. It’s the opposite end of the spectrum of the pair of hands, of just doing the tasks.

[00:08:43] This is when you’re taking on the leadership responsibilities of a leader, about making decisions, about following up with team members, about setting expectations. And again, often we fall into this because the leader has abdicated their responsibility. ’cause it feels easier to have you do it, but. This is a challenge because we’re not really embedding true ownership in leadership and you’re falling apart with sustainability.

[00:09:09] Jim Womack and I talked about on episodes 37 and 38, about how one of the biggest failure points of lean over the last 40 years is leaders delegating responsibility to consultants to do kaizen or continuous improvement. They’re taking over the leader’s role to lead in the surrogate leadership role or this pair of hands, and it’s not creating true sustainable change.

[00:09:32] We all find ourselves falling into these roles sometimes, and for select situations, it’s appropriate to move things forward intentionally, but our challenge is when we get trapped in all of these modes and stay in these roles. So to help you avoid falling into the doer trap or to get you unstuck if you’re already there, I’m gonna now share it.

[00:09:53] Three simple shifts that you can make to make immediate changes and impact. And I’m also gonna share the results that several of these groups of leaders that I’ve been working with have had in practicing this just over the last few weeks. The first step. Having clarity. Clarity for yourself, knowing your role, and who owns the doing.

[00:10:14] I wanna be clear that I’m not saying there are things that you don’t own as a leader or change agent. They absolutely do. It’s about knowing who owns the work and who owns the outcomes. And one of the ways that you can delineate that is understanding that the leader owns the what, what they’re going to accomplish.

[00:10:36] And you own the how as a continuous improvement facilitator or coach, how to. Facilitate and help the leader you’re supporting To get to that what? To that outcome. And as a leader or manager, you need to be clear on what you own at your scope of responsibility and what really should be owned by the leaders or managers who report to you.

[00:10:58] Again, who owns the responsibility for the outcomes? What’s my role and what’s your role in every interaction? So it’s important to have clarity on what you own, who is the doer, and who is the coach or supporter. And this is so important if you’re an operational leader, internal or external coach or consultant, or supporting someone in your personal life as a parent or a friend.

[00:11:20] I also talked about this importance of knowing your role back in episode 27. It’s one of the key elements of being a skillful facilitator. And no matter what role you’re in, leader, facilitator, coach, teacher, it’s not your responsibility for the outcome. If you don’t own the doing, you help create the conditions for learning and helping others to get to the outcome.

[00:11:41] I always say it’s about owning the thinking process, not the actual thinking. Again, you own the thinking process in creating the conditions for learning and making progress, not the actual thinking or doing. In the workplace. We often misunderstand our source of authority and influence. We equate that to doing, and our power and our influence comes less from you doing and more from you shaping and creating the conditions and enabling, truly growing this chain of learning across the organization.

[00:12:12] In my work with one of my clients and her team of internal change leaders, one of the frustrations they came forward in expressing is not always knowing what their role is and what they should truly be owning. So one of the first things that we talked about was getting clarity on what their role is truly as continuous improvement.

[00:12:31] Leaders in the organization and also the various hats that they wear at different times. Sometimes their coach, sometimes their facilitator, sometimes their teacher, and truly sometimes. Then the senior leader of this group is the owner of how to shape the transformation roadmap. But because of a lack of clarity for themselves, they often found themselves defaulting to the doer trap, for example, being a pair of hands and taking on tasks just to get it done.

[00:12:58] Or because the leaders in the room that they were working with just assumed that they should be taking on all the to do tasks. I. They became surrogate leaders who were checking in on the status of deliverables that really should have been done by a manager or leader of that group, and they were sometimes uncertain if it was okay for them to really be in that questioning mode instead of telling that they thought that maybe their internal clients expected them to tell all the answers.

[00:13:23] The first step for them to get unstuck was to get super clear on their role and purpose within the organization, and that part of their responsibility as change leaders to be effective was to be really clear on what they should own and do and what others and the organization should own and do. Again, going back to the leaders and managers that they support and work with are the ones needing to own the what.

[00:13:50] And they help own the how creating the conditions to get to the what. We spent some time talking about how their impact comes from shifting from de defaulting to doing all the tasks. Although of course, balancing occasional hands-on work with intention to then. Shifting to owning the process for creating the conditions and systems to support organizational transformation and thus maintaining real influence and strategic impact.

[00:14:14] Similarly, one of the big challenges of a group of operational leaders that I’ve been working with is that they’re feeling overwhelmed by so much on their plate so much to do, and part of the work we did together was to realize. That is coming ’cause they’re doing so much doing that should be owned by the managers that report to them or their teams as well because they’re always in this firefighting mode and having a sense of urgency.

[00:14:36] They were defaulting to just feeling like it was easier to take on all the tasks. So they’re falling into that pair of hands trap for the leaders working with them. So we spent some time in reflection to help them really clarify for themselves what are the problems that they should own at their level.

[00:14:53] As senior leaders and when they should be more in a coaching role with their team members to really keep that responsibility of thinking and problem solving with their team. So once you have clarity on your role and what part of the process you own, it’s about taking action on that. And one of the challenges we all have is we get reactive.

[00:15:11] And so how to combat that reactive mode of defaulting into this doer trap is by taking what I call an intention pause. And that’s just a ten second pause to reset, to say, in this upcoming interaction, what is my role? Do I own the doing? Or am I more in a supportive role where I’m helping someone else get to how they solve that problem or do the thing and then really connect with how you’re going to show up to do that.

[00:15:38] So take that intention pause to remind yourself of your role, clarity. Who owns the outcome, and what role are you in in this upcoming interaction? And this simple shift on just being clear on your role and how you show up can be transformational. So these same clients that I was sharing about here, uh, with a senior continuous improvement leader who was frustrated that she was often defaulting to telling mode with her direct reports and giving them all her suggestions about how to shape the work she was finding herself stepping into rescuer mode and taking away the opportunities for her own team of internal continuous improvement facilitators to own and shape the work that she really had delegated to them.

[00:16:13] So. She practiced doing this to really understand what is her role in that moment, and taking that intention pause and then clarifying her role as a manager and coach in that situation. She, she told me this week with great enthusiasm that this approach had broken her out of her old mode. She said she purposely paused, clarified her intention in the role that her intention was not to do the work, but to set her team member up for success.

[00:16:38] And she realized in reflection that more. Success came when she let go, when she got clarity on her role in that moment and gave her team member the space to take on the work. So I want you to reflect on to how can you make this shift to really understand with clarity, what is your role? When are you the doer, the owner of the work, and when are you more in that consultative, facilitative coaching role?

[00:17:03] The first step, as we said, is to clarify your role. And know when you’re the doer and when you’re the enabler. The second step then is to communicate and contract for your role and your actions with the leaders you’re working with. Well, it’s necessary for you to be clear on your role. It’s not always sufficient to just for you to have clarity.

[00:17:26] You need to create that clarity for others. So if you don’t clarify your role and intentions with the other person or team members you’re working with, there might not be alignment in expectations. Your intentions might not be visible, and also the leader you’re working with might really think that you are the doer in this case when actually.

[00:17:48] It is their responsibility for doing the doing. This lack of shared understanding can result in conflict. And also then that frustration of when like you thought someone else was going to do something, or you’re finding yourself stuck in one of those doer traps. ’cause maybe you’re turning into the pair of hands or you’re jumping in to be that surrogate leader when the leader is not actually taking on the responsibility.

[00:18:15] So you can shape this. This is part of your power in influence skills that you need to have no matter what your official role is in the organization. Your role can shift sometimes between doer and enabler, and also then how you’re showing up. I encourage leaders. Coaches, facilitators and consultants alike to not only have clarity for themselves, but to communicate in contract for how they’re gonna show up, what hat they’re wearing, their role in, the expectations and intentions for the behaviors they’re gonna take to be in that relationship or work together or having an interaction.

[00:18:56] And what they can expect and should expect from the other person. Back in episode 34 with Michael Bunge Stanier, we talked about how one of the biggest failure points for change leaders, and one of the biggest reason that change initiatives fail is because contracting isn’t happening. Leaders and change leaders are not contracting for their roles and expectations.

[00:19:17] And I see this with operational leaders as well and not. Clarifying with their team members when it is something they’re delegating responsibility of, ownership of doing for and when they really should be more in that leader as coach type of role. I had some of my own realizations of this 15 years ago when I was the senior leader of an internal lean promotion office and I was consulting and coaching to the CEO on his strategic report, which is.

[00:19:47] Called in the format of a strategy, A3. A3 being the size of a piece of paper in a problem solving and strategic planning format that Toyota and from Japan. So I was going into this conversation, this co, what I thought was a coaching session with the CEO to work on his strategic A three. And there he was with a blank piece of paper and he thought I was gonna be taking the pen and pencil and doing all the thinking and writing out what the problem was and how he was thinking about this.

[00:20:17] And I had the expectation that he should be doing that. And then we took a moment and to pause and I said, actually, Dr. So-and-so, ’cause he was a physician, you need to be doing the thinking on this. And my role here is to be asking you questions. And he looked at me in total surprise. Like he hadn’t been picking up a pen and pencil in.

[00:20:37] Ages ’cause someone had always been doing it for him. And I explained in this situation, it was important for him to be doing the thinking. And a lot of that thinking came through the actual process of writing, of drawing and sketching it out. And that my role was gonna be to ask him questions. But my failure point in this.

[00:20:54] And he actually did that at the end. And that was, that was good and it went well. But my failure point was that I didn’t set those expectations. Before, I didn’t contract for that when we went in. So we had this moment of awkwardness, of surprise and misalignment and thankfully we were able to move through that.

[00:21:09] But the more you can bring those conversations to the forefront and have them at the beginning, you will run into less conflict. I. Peter Block in his book, flawless Consulting, was my go-to model for learning and teaching contracting skills for my team members when I was that internal leader of this group of of change practitioners.

[00:21:31] And it was that same time that I was having that challenge. So it was interesting that I was learning by doing in some failure points at the same time. And many of my team members had come from diverse backgrounds. Some of them were physicians or nurses who had been put into a consulting role or had come from other independent contributor types of positions.

[00:21:49] And so they really had to learn how to clarify that their role was no longer the doer of the work, but to enable and coach and shape the how leaders were gonna get to the what. And so contracting can be as simple as showing up to a, a meeting or the first opportunity of engagement and communicating.

[00:22:11] What you clearly understand is your role clarifying who is the doer, who owns the work in the results, and who is going to be the enabler or the facilitator or the coach, and then how you’re gonna work together. And this can happen either in the moment or happen happen over, uh, many conversations. As well.

[00:22:31] If you’re working with a team, doing this with a charter can and talking about the different roles and expectations people have is a great way to do this. This same group of internal change leaders that I’ve been working with over the last few months asked me for an example of how I might have one of these more simple contracting conversations, and they were talking about how typically when they go into maybe a coaching situation with an executive.

[00:22:53] That there is that same, in the same way that I had that challenge with the CEO, how I might do that differently and so that they can have that conversation in the beginning. So here’s an example of how I might frame just a simple contracting conversation to communicate roles and expectations of how the, the process will unfold.

[00:23:13] ’cause remember, you own the how, the creation of the conditions for the learning to get to the outcome and the person you’re working with when you’re in this supportive role. Owns the what? So they own the doing in the results. And so, again, this is off the cuff of top of my head right now, but I wanted to share an example of how you could approach a simple contracting conversation.

[00:23:33] Say you’re going into a coaching session with, or what you believe is a coaching session with an executive. So you could say. Hi Leader, it’s great to see you today. I’m looking forward to helping you in the hour we have together. My understanding is that you’ve been asked by the CEO to prepare a strategic a three document or another report on a major initiative that you’re gonna be leading, um, and that you need to share it with her next week.

[00:24:00] Is that right? So in, so when you say that you’re first shaping the roles, kind of putting the ownership that they own this, uh, report and they own the strategic initiative, so then you could continue and say, uh, my intention in this hour is to really help you make progress. Um, so that really set you up for success in sharing your, uh, the report with the CEO and also really help make sure that you’ve gone through the deep understanding of the problem and making a connection between the countermeasures that you’re putting forward.

[00:24:31] The proposed plan and also really articulating the problem that you’re trying to solve strategically. So, to do this, why don’t you first share with me what you’ve prepared for so far, and then I’m gonna ask you some questions to help you think along that process, to go a little bit deeper and to really make sure that you’ve clarified, uh, clarified the steps and, and other ways that you can continue to help refine your thinking so that you’re best set up to share this with the CEO next week.

[00:24:59] And if you have any questions about the process, about how to really create a strategic A three or any challenges you’re having, I’m happy to help with that as well. So that would be one way to do that. And by helping, you could be sharing some teaching moments if they are, say, maybe stuck with their data analysis or other things.

[00:25:15] So there are many different roles you can have there, but again, the important thing is you’re putting the responsibility for the doing, the working, and the outcome on them, and that you’re gonna be in a facilitative coaching role. So my assignment to this group of internal change leaders was to try these contracting conversations and what an impact it’s had.

[00:25:38] So I just met with them earlier this week and they were talking about how just over the last few weeks they have had seen an incredible change and by them. Doing this. So a month ago they shared with me that one of the challenges they were perceived by their internal clients of being the police of the metrics.

[00:25:55] They would go into meetings and say, did you do your monthly metrics? How are they going? Um, but they didn’t get much traction ’cause they see, they were, seemed like they were the ones who were going to be evaluating them or judging them or blaming them or just like. Checking the box, did they do it or they not, even though their intention was there to be helpful, the way they were showing up and the way they’re being perceived, uh, were that they were the owner of the metrics.

[00:26:18] And really, in many ways, they were falling into that surrogate leadership role because it should be the man, those leaders, senior managers who are asking those questions, if they’d done it. In our group coaching session, we talked about how they could be having these contracting conversations and both clarify their role and clarify their role through conversation with the leaders.

[00:26:39] And they said that when they went in and tried this, it totally reset the agenda and had such dramatic impact. And so this is what they did when they went in this week, they said. To the leader, this is reflection time for you. Our role here is to help ask questions so that you can reflect as a leadership team on how well these metrics are serving you.

[00:27:02] We’re not gonna evaluate you or share the status with other teams. We’re here to really help you understand how you can improve the standard for reporting, and then how as an organization we can look at making improvements as a total. So they said that this shift in just explaining that they were there to help and hold questions and have space for reflection shifted from them being the evaluators, to them being the enablers for the leadership team to think about how effectively they were using the metrics and how valuable they were.

[00:27:34] And so it changed the whole nature of what they did and the other leaders responded so well. It’s super important, have those contracting conversations, so clarify your role for yourself, and then have conversations and contract for those roles and expectations. And then the third shift that you can make, the third practice you can bring in is how you can cultivate learning by modeling the way.

[00:27:58] This third shift really helps embed creating the conditions for a learning culture. It explicitly cultivates learning through modeling the way and labeling what you’re doing to fulfill your role as the supporter or the enabler of the other person doing the doing. And it causes reflection at the end.

[00:28:19] So there are two ways that I suggest doing this, and I’ve talked about some of these in the break, the telling Habit episode and in how to be an effective facilitator. So when you, what I call labeling, it means narrating what you’re actually doing and why. So say. I’m asking an open-ended question because I wanna help you think, or I’m pausing to give you space to think.

[00:28:45] And so it’s a, it’s narrating your actions and the intentions and reasons behind it. It’s making an explicit connection between the role you communicated earlier and how you’re behaving. And it really helps make. Explicit these behaviors so that other leaders can be seeing, oh, there’s purpose and reason behind why you’re pausing or why you’re asking a question.

[00:29:05] It’s not that you’re like having this awkward silence or asking a question to be, you know, trying to do a gotcha with someone. I do this also when I’m giving some feedback to people. I’ll say, I’ve been creating some observable evidence here, and my intention is to help hold this up so that you can reflect.

[00:29:22] Can see how you’re actually behaving in this, or the things that you said and where they open-ended questions or closed-end questions, for example. It could be anything. And then the second thing to do to really model that way is to ask for feedback through. Asking a learning question, and this is something that both Michael Bunge standing here and I talked about and demonstrated in episode 34 and what I talk about in how to break the telling habit.

[00:29:48] So modeling this way with this process question, with this learning question, and this could be something you also. Say at the beginning to set the stage when you’re having that contracting conversation or setting the stage for how things are gonna go and be shaped in that meeting, you could say, I’m really focusing this session on not interrupting, because I’ve found that sometimes I do that, so I am going to count to 10 after I ask a question to give you space to think.

[00:30:16] So, and then at the end of the session, I wanna ask you a question. How did having that space help you or not? Um, you could also ask another question, like at the end, I’m gonna ask a question, what was most helpful for you? Or what was a question that sparked a breakthrough? And then come through at the end and actually ask those questions so you can model the way by narrating what you’re doing, your intentions, and then asking a reflection question at the end.

[00:30:42] It’s so powerful and I encourage you to try it out. It might. Feel a little awkward at first, but it really is an accelerating force that gets leaders you’re working with to reflect on how you’re showing up as an enabler, not a doer. And then it models the way for how they might be doing the same thing when they are more in that enabling, helping mode rather than doing the doing so it can help them to get out of this doer trap.

[00:31:10] So in this episode, I’ve shared three simple shifts, three steps that you can take to help you get out of the doer trap. And these steps really can truly be powerful and have immediate impact on not just you, but the leaders and team members that you work with as well. I. I wanna share a few other examples that came forward just really in this last week with working with several different teams of operational leaders and change practitioners, and that by clarifying their role, communicating it with internal clients and team members and modeling the way has really shifted the conversation and the impact, but also their sense of their own power and influence.

[00:31:49] The Transformational Change leader that I’ve been doing a lot of work with, she said, this shift by doing these three practices has allowed me the freedom to do my job and not other people’s jobs. It’s been transformational and it’s just been a few weeks since we’ve been doing this. That clarity gives everyone the freedom to stay in the right role and true to their intentions, not to step into the doing.

[00:32:11] And then she said the clarity is the gift you give to yourself and others. And some other change leaders that I’ve been working with in a collaborative, ongoing coaching group talked to me about how they’ve been putting in practice this concept as well. And one one of them said she had this aha moment that she realized my strength is getting the thinking out of people.

[00:32:31] I. Not doing all the tasks. Yes, your influence and your power as a transformational change leader comes from not doing all the thinking. It’s about creating the conditions for learning and thinking and not doing all the doing. And another said when I clarified that my power comes from not being the doer.

[00:32:51] But being the one who stands next to the leader and helps them clarify their goals, make progress, and not actually do it myself. And so I loved hearing these examples because these are the core shifts you have to make to really move from being a continuous improvement doer. Or a manager that is stepping into the doing role that your team members should be doing, and then truly stepping into being an influential transformational change leader or an effective leader that’s really creating capability and confidence across the organization.

[00:33:23] As we wrap up this episode, I want you to remember. That when you’re taking on the work that your clients or team members are responsible for, you’re inadvertently stepping into their roles instead of guiding the overall process. Getting out of the doer trap is about owning your role, shaping the conversation, and being proactive.

[00:33:41] I challenge you to reflect on your own experiences. When are you falling into one of these doer traps? Hero. Rescuer, magician, pair of hands, or surrogate leader, and how can you break free of these traps and step into a transformational leadership role where you’re shaping the how and empowering others.

[00:34:01] Ask yourself, are you ready to get outta the do or trap and truly own your influence? Your powered influence comes from knowing your role, shaping that role through contracting and modeling the way, and helping leaders reflect on the impact of your support in the added benefit. It unburdens you from the weight of responsibility of having to do it all.

[00:34:20] This is how you create an organization full of capability and confidence to solve problems at all levels and create sustainability. In your organization. It’s by knowing what are the problems that you have ownership for solving? How can you shape and influence the organization to move forward and not always doing the doing and the thinking that really should be owned by others.

[00:34:43] So try it out for your next project or your next, uh, in upcoming interaction with another leader. First, go in and clarify your role for yourself in this moment. Who owns the responsibility for the doing and the thinking and the taking action? Who owns the what and who owns the how? ’cause then you will know how you need to show up and take that intention.

[00:35:05] Pause second. Communicate and contract for roles, explain your role in that moment and your intentions for how you’re gonna show up and behave, whether they’re the direct reports you manage and executive you’re coaching, or a cross-functional team that you’re helping. Having that clarity on who owns the actions and the results and who is in that enabling function is so critical.

[00:35:29] Then the third element is about creating the learning model. The way. Create an expectation for learning by labeling it and demonstrating your intentions and the reasons behind how you’re acting, and then ask a follow-up question to spark reflection, to get feedback for yourself, but also to help the leaders you’re working with.

[00:35:49] Think about what was helpful for you being not in the doer process there, but in the enabler. To help you think more about the different competencies that you need to master to be a transformational change leader, I encourage you to go download my free catalyst self-assessment that covers eight different competencies that are truly part of being a transformational change leader.

[00:36:13] You can go get [email protected] slash. Catalyst spelled with a K. And if you haven’t already done so, go back and listen to episode nine of this podcast where I talk about each of the eight competencies in detail. If you’re looking for some additional help to get unstuck from the doer trap, I would love to help you.

[00:36:32] My passion is working with change leaders, continuous improvement practitioners and executive leaders to grow in your influence and impact and create the outcomes you need for your organization by developing the relational and influence skills to help you achieve your vision for a high performing learning organization.

[00:36:49] Gets results. It’s about building capability and confidence at all levels. You can learn more about my trusted advisor coaching and learning experiences on my website, k bj anderson.com. The link’s also in the show notes. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please be sure to follow and subscribe now on your favorite podcast player and share this podcast episode with your friends and colleagues so we can all strengthen our chain of learning together.

[00:37:13] Thanks for being a link in my chain of learning. I’ll see you next time. Have a great day.