Context
The implementation team had recently been absorbed by a larger company. The change in ownership brought new reporting lines, new stakeholders, and no real continuity. Both sides of the project, customer and vendor, became cautious and political. Roles blurred. Trust eroded.
The Drag
At one point, a senior stakeholder on the customer side stated he would no longer speak with anyone from the implementation team. The friction had grown that deep. Then he saw me standing nearby and said, without pause, “Except for him. He can come in.”
Not because I was neutral.
Because I was aligned.
Not with a company, but with the goal.
The Twist
In parallel, a member of the implementation team had been assigned a complex technical feature. She accepted the role, but did not have the necessary skills to deliver it. Her design was slow, brittle, and structurally wrong.
She struggled silently. No one stepped in.
By the time I was asked to review it, most of the work was already broken.
I had to disassemble the module, discard 90% of her work, and rebuild the core from scratch.
She was furious. She saw it as sabotage. I saw it as triage.
The Insight
Trust is personal, not structural.
And assigning responsibility without capability is not empowerment, it is abandonment.