You’ve just started to make a dent in your ever-increasing things to do list, when one of your fellow architects comes through the door with a question. This isn’t unusual. It seems to happen at least three times every day. Someone gets stuck on a tricky detail, or how they need or should respond to a client email, and they come to you to get your advice.
It’s natural that people will ask advice from others, especially those senior to them. It’s even good in a lot of ways: even the best architects can miss something when they are too close to the work. And different people will have different points of view and experiences that can help you work through a particular issue.
The problem arises when all people go to the same person for all the answers all the time.
At first glance, this too will seem completely reasonable. They are the person who is easiest to talk to, who is always helpful and seems to solve every problem effortlessly. They make the person doing the asking feel comfortable and supported.
Often, if the person they are asking is really good, those asking for advice will be led through a series of questions so they can find their own answers. This helps others feel clever and capable, and it’s a feeling worth chasing again.
I’m sure you can see the problems arising from this.
First, there’s the everyday cost. The advisor’s time and energy end up being spent dealing with everyone else’s problems. This leaves little time for their own work, often resulting in them working ridiculous hours to catch up with everything that needs doing.
And secondly, there’s the Sword of Damocles that hangs over the practice when they become so reliant on one person. What happens when that person goes on holiday? What if they have a family emergency, or a health emergency? Or, as is increasingly likely when someone is working long hours, what if they experience complete burnout and are forced to stop?
What happens when the practice discovers, at a bad moment, that the skill was never anywhere except in one person’s head?
The odd part is that mostly, people in the practice are aware of this reliance on that one person. It’s fairly obvious when everyone, be they internal to the practice, or external clients or contractors, goes to them with every single query. Everyone accepts this as normal: this is just how the practice works. It’s as fixed as the colour of the front door.
But it isn’t the only way the practice can work.
A front door can be repainted. And a pattern, once discovered, can be replicated or changed.