I lean back, and my neck lets out a crack so violent it sounds like a 3-year-old branch snapping in the frost. I wince. The pain is a sharp, jagged 3 on a scale of ten, but it's the kind of 3 that promises to become a 13 if I don't change my posture soon. I've been sitting in this ergonomic chair-which cost the company roughly $883 and yet feels like a medieval torture device-for exactly 73 minutes straight, listening to the silence of a man who used to be a god.
The Virtuoso
Compose Logic
The Ghost
Manage Process
Across from me sits Dave. Two years ago, Dave was the person you went to when the world was on fire. If the database shat itself at 3:33 AM on a Sunday, Dave was there, his fingers dancing across the mechanical keyboard with a rhythmic clack that sounded like progress. He was a virtuoso. He didn't just write code; he composed it. He understood the architecture of our systems in a way that felt almost telepathic. He was rewarded for this brilliance, as most corporations reward brilliance, by being told he should no longer do the thing he is brilliant at.
The API for Conflict Resolution
In our current one-on-one, I am describing a genuine human catastrophe. Two of our junior developers are essentially in a cold war. One is passive-aggressive in pull requests, the other is 'forgetting' to invite the first to design syncs. It's a messy, emotional, deeply human knot that is slowing down our release cycle by at least 13 days. I'm looking for guidance, for a strategy, for a sign that Dave understands that people aren't just logic gates.
Dave stares at me. The silence stretches for 33 seconds. I can almost see the gears turning in his head, trying to find an API for 'conflict resolution.' His eyes are glazed, reflecting the blue light of his monitor which currently displays 43 unread Slack messages. Finally, he clears his throat. It's a dry, rattling sound.
'So...' he says, leaning back. 'Have you tried documenting it in a Confluence page?'
I feel my pulse jump. It's not anger, exactly. It's a profound, hollow disappointment. We have taken a man who could speak to machines and forced him to speak to ghosts. We have participated in the Peter Principle not as a joke, but as a mandatory religious rite. We have systematically removed our most skilled individual contributor and stranded him in a management role he has zero interest in, and even less aptitude for. We didn't just lose a great engineer; we gained a barrier.
"I spent 23 minutes last week talking to Claire Y., a therapy animal trainer who has seen this same rot in her world.
The Incentive Tragedy
Mastery Driven
Bureaucracy Driven
This practice reveals a profound, almost pathological misunderstanding of value. In the corporate mind, 'Senior' must lead to 'Lead,' which must lead to 'Manager,' which must lead to 'Director.' It's a linear progression that assumes every human is a ladder-climber by nature. But some humans are explorers. Some are craftsmen. Some are meant to go deeper, not higher. By forcing everyone toward the same bottleneck of people management, we create a culture that effectively hallows out expertise. We take the 83% of our brainpower that should be spent on innovation and re-route it into the 13% of our brainpower dedicated to navigating office politics and approving vacation requests.
My own failure:
I spent 53 hours a week in meetings where the primary goal was to decide when the next meeting would be. I missed the tactile sensation of solving a problem that stayed solved.
But that's the lie, isn't it? That being an expert is 'the bottom.' We have devalued the act of *doing* to the point where the only way to get a decent mortgage is to stop doing and start watching others do. It's a tragedy of incentives. If you want to earn what you're worth, you have to stop being the person who creates the value. It makes as much sense as telling a heart surgeon that they've done such a good job they are now the head of the hospital's janitorial logistics department.
The Structural Shift Needed
There is a better way to think about this, a way that prioritizes the health of the individual and the organization. We need to stop seeing management as the only path to status. Organizations like ADAPT Press have often highlighted the need for structural shifts that respect the 'Individual Contributor' track as a lifelong journey of mastery, not a waiting room for a manager's cubicle. We need a world where Dave can be paid the same as a VP because his technical vision saves the company $103,000 a day, without ever having to ask a junior dev how they 'feel' about a deadline.
The Double Vacuum Effect
When we force masters into management, we create a double-vacuum.
- ● The hole left by their missing expertise.
- ● The vacuum of leadership from someone who sees 'people problems' as bugs.
Dave isn't a bad guy. He's a brilliant guy in a bad cage.
The Return to Field Genius
I think back to Claire Y. and her dogs. She told me she eventually moved that star trainer back to the field. It required a 13% shift in the budget and a lot of explaining to the board, but the result was immediate. The trainer's health improved. The dogs started getting better again. The 'Regional Director' role was filled by someone who actually enjoyed the 43 emails a day and the logistical puzzles of human scheduling. Everyone won because the roles were aligned with the soul of the person occupying them.
Addicted
To Hierarchy
Crumbling
Under Incompetence
Future Loss
Turning Builders to Reporters
But most companies won't do that. They are terrified of the 'flat' structure. They are addicted to the hierarchy. They would rather have 103 unhappy managers than 103 happy, high-performing experts who might earn more than their bosses. It's a ego-driven architecture that is slowly crumbling under the weight of its own incompetence. We are systematically removing the people who know how to build the future and turning them into the people who just report on how the future is falling behind schedule.
The Final Nod
My neck cracks again, a smaller pop this time, a 3 out of 10 on the satisfaction scale. I look at Dave. He's waiting for me to say something about the Confluence page. I realize that if I tell him it's a bad idea, I'll just be adding to his cognitive load. I'll be another 'ticket' for him to process. So I just nod.
We need to stop asking our best people to step away from their greatness. We need to stop treating the human soul like a resource that can be 'optimized' into a spreadsheet. Until we change the way we define 'growth,' we will continue to be a society of brilliant people doing jobs they hate, led by people who wish they were doing something else.
What if we let the masters keep their craft?
What if the ladder didn't lead to a desk and a title, but to a deeper, more profound version of the work they already love? Maybe then, we wouldn't all be sitting in $883 chairs with necks that sound like breaking wood, staring at a screen and wondering where the music went.