Collateral Talent #1: When Competence Triggers Collapse

Collateral Talent #1: When Competence Triggers Collapse

By Gene Fliman, Practice Director at MCLI Technologies

There’s a pattern we see over and over in transformation programs: someone strong is brought in — a fixer, with clarity, competence, operational insight. Early in, they spot missed assumptions, project phases that were never scoped, dependencies left dangling. They push for breathing room, for transparent decisions, for clearer roles. And then… the air starts to thin. Access to stakeholders gets limited; scope change approvals dragged out; issues raised in demos get glossed over; forecasts stay unchanged despite reality starting to diverge.

The gamble? Believing that good intentions, even strong resumes, will protect top performers from internal politics. But often, they don’t. That’s when competence triggers collapse.

What We See

In many of today’s large-scale transformations, strong operators raise the flags — stalled integrations, unapproved feature creep, or slide decks reporting “green” while delivery is slipping. They get boxed in by shifting charters or vague mandates. They deal with inconsistent burn-down charts, with leaders who won’t rebaseline, even when sprint metrics clearly diverge. And most dangerous of all: when their observations are dismissed or labeled “rocky start,” “alignment issue,” or worse, “not a team player.”

Concretely, in finance and tech, we’re seeing exec churn and internal pushback:

• Goldman Sachs: The CEO cracked down on dissent, as long-time executives who reportedly challenged leadership (Jim Esposito, Ed Emerson) were pushed out. Some of this tied to strategy misalignment in their consumer finance moves. (New York Post)

• EY’s research: 75% of CFOs say they've seen a failed transformation in the last five years. One major complaint is misalignment at the C-suite level that prevents problems from being surfaced until it’s too late. (The CFO)

These aren’t perfect “fixer was ousted” stories — but they’re strong signals that the risk is real: bringing in competence can expose cracks. Sometimes that’s exactly what leadership fears more than actual failure.

Why it Happens

Because in many large orgs, signals get filtered. When an operator starts calling out inconsistencies — unclosed dependencies, scope changes without approvals, un-relined burn-downs — leadership often has no framework to respond without losing face. So what gets sacrificed? Access, visibility, then credibility of that operator. Sometimes even their role.

Meanwhile, executive levels often leave forecasts unchanged — public statuses, steering-committee materials, board reviews continue to show “on track,” while behind the scenes teams scramble under resource constraints.

What MCLI Helps Do

We walk into this messy middle. Then we:

• Identify where early warnings are being dismissed

• Ensure strong operators have the mandate, support, and communication paths to be heard

• Help adjust forecasts, rebaseline when needed, make the invisible visible

• Protect delivery leads so they don’t get labeled difficult for doing the “right things”

References

• Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon cracked down on dissent, pushed out critics: reports of longtime executives who challenged parts of strategy being removed. (New York Post)

• EY: 75% of CFOs have seen a transformation fail in the last 5 years; misalignment in leadership often preventing course-correction. (The CFO)