At a pivotal point in my career growth, I got stuck with a project I had grown tired of while a more stimulating project was being spun up with new hires. I was “too important” to the old project and shut out. I did not enjoy that experience.
I’ve always been a pretty decent writer, and a passable tutor. It wasn’t that I couldn’t divest knowledge to other people, we just hadn’t made the time. I never did get onto that other project, the company started spiraling before I convinced that manager the team could deal without me. But I have seen what happens when a senior person becomes the bottleneck, or when only one voice champions an idea in meetings, and I do a better job of carving out bits of subject matter to co-create with peers or bequeath to people I’m mentoring. There’s plenty of breathing room between Work Yourself Out of a Job and Being Indispensable, where you have enough capacity that you can participate in new ideas that strike your fancy.
