The Difference Between Being Needed and Being Developed
Being trusted with difficult work can be a wonderful thing. I also want to know whether that trust is giving someone room to grow, especially when a team has become very comfortable depending on what they already do well.
I have mixed feelings about the compliment, "We don't know what we'd do without you."
In creative teams, it often means someone is trusted with difficult work, knows the clients inside out, and can keep a project moving when everything around it gets complicated. It's a lovely thing to hear, but it can also become an incredibly convenient reason to keep someone in exactly the same place.
Think about the producer who can manage every impossible deadline but rarely gets invited into the early creative conversations they're curious about. Or the senior designer who catches every problem in final review, while someone else always gets the opportunity to help shape the direction.
Nobody is necessarily withholding opportunities on purpose. Sometimes a team has simply become so comfortable with someone's strengths, they've stopped thinking about what else the person might want to explore.
Development requires a different kind of attention. It means understanding where someone wants to grow and being willing to create meaningful opportunities for them to practice. A designer interested in creative direction needs room to influence decisions, not another meeting to observe. A producer exploring strategy needs involvement while ideas are taking shape, not only when it's time to execute them.
And people need the time and support to learn. Adding new responsibilities to an already full workload isn't development, even when the intentions are good.
I love seeing people become indispensable because of the work they do. I'm equally interested in whether the teams depending on them are making room for everything they could become.
Three questions for a development conversation
Choose a responsibility someone wants to grow into. Talk through what they would actually get to practice and what would make that possible.
What would you like to help shape? Name the decisions or stages of the work you want to become involved in, beyond the responsibilities you already handle well.
Where could you practice? Choose an upcoming project with a meaningful opportunity to contribute. Agree on the support and feedback available while you learn.
What needs to make room? Discuss which existing responsibilities can change so the opportunity fits into the working week. Growth needs time as well as encouragement.