Over the past few months, I had the privilege of supporting a visionary tech company during a critical leadership transition. Unlike many organisations focused on replacing cogs, they recognised that filling a role was not about finding an identical spare part – it was about building a new engine for future capability.
Working collaboratively with HR and future team members, we delivered:
✅ Redefined Role Maturity: Using the People Model Canvas to map progression from Junior → Senior → Leadership – clarifying skill evolution, decision rights, and accountability at each stage.
✅ Future-State Processes: Envisioned scalable operations integrating Lean principles to eliminate waste and prevent performance system “collateral damage”.
✅ Integrated Talent Spine: Created skills matrices linking role levels to performance metrics and company grading – ensuring growth transparency.
✅ Co-Created Solutions with the stakeholders, those directly impacted by the role description and assessment.
The Deeper Insight:
This client’s openness to my non-traditional profile (Lean ops & org psychology!) unlocked unique innovation. Yet simultaneously:
🔥 “I’ve been declined for roles where clients demanded a perfectly matching cog, whilst their real problem was unaddressed systemic issues.”
Research validates this disconnect:
- The “Cog Replacement” Fallacy LinkedIn finds 70% of professionals gain skills outside their core field, yet 60% of hires focus on “exact experience” (HBR, 2023). MIT Sloan notes this creates skills blindness, making organisations miss innovators who solve adjacent challenges (MIT SMR, 2022).
- Symptoms vs. Root Causes Gallup reports 82% of leadership failures stem from misdiagnosed problems (e.g. “We need a PM!” vs. “Our role design breeds burnout”) (Gallup, 2024). As Edgar Schein observed: “The problem presented is rarely the real problem – it’s a symptom of cultural or structural pathology” (1969).
My Approach Builds Engines, Not Replaces Cogs:
Leveraging cross-industry expertise (automotive/aeronautical/biotech) + therapy training to:
🔧 Diagnose root causes (e.g. role gaps signalling flawed workflows/unsafe culture)
🔧 Design systems-level solutions (beyond cosmetic fixes)
🔧 Transfer methodologies unexpectedly (e.g. manufacturing KPIs → SaaS talent systems)
The Critical Irony:
Organisations reject engine builders over cog specifications while lamenting transformation gaps – as unmeasured costs compound:
- Misaligned teams
- Recurring crises
- Silent attrition
True transformation requires T-shaped experts who design engines with:
🔹 Deep pistons in operational excellence (Lean/Change and Transformation Management)
🔹 Wide fuel lines in adjacent domains (Systems Thinking/Organisational Design/Coaching)
🔹 Integrated systems across fields
Ready to build engines, not replace cogs? I help leaders leverage deep-and-wide expertise to solve root-cause challenges in talent and operations.
👉 Let’s engineer your evolution: contact me
Through Yinsight, I support companies, their managers and teams in their development with a view to achieving tangible performance that respects people. Creating strategy, working on collective values, aligning teams, managing complexity and interpersonal dynamics, and providing individual and collective support for transformation are at the heart of my work.