Why Your 'Doers' Are Blocked: Fixing Inefficient Processes

The Cost of Poor Process Design

When deadlines slip and execution stalls, the default assumption in many organizations is that the team lacks hustle, discipline, or focus. The truth, according to the Kaltcha model, is the opposite: The problem is not that your people are slow, but that your process design forces them to be.

If you have highly competent individuals—your reliable Doers and your critical Developers—who are consistently frustrated, missing deadlines, or delivering high-quality work at a crippling pace, the blame lies with a failure in Enabling Structure. This structural flaw creates operational bottlenecks, directly impacting your Layer 3 metrics of Speed and Quality.

Inefficient processes are the most common way an organization penalizes its most execution-focused staff.

The Pain of the Doer and the Developer

The pain felt by individuals in the Doer and Developer roles provides the clearest signal that your process is fundamentally broken.

• The Doer's Block: The Doer thrives on execution and tangible results. They are the engine of the project. Their deepest frustration comes from unclear norms and unnecessary friction. They are blocked by a chaotic handover process, meetings without clear outcomes, or norms that require five sign-offs for a simple decision. When the Enabling Structure is flawed, the Doer wastes time fighting the process instead of executing the work.
• The Developer's Constraint: The Developer specializes in deconstructing complex systems and creating robust, scalable solutions. They require specific autonomy and clear information to prevent building fragile systems. When processes are chaotic, they often don't have the space or the time to ask critical questions, leading to technical debt and quality issues down the line. They are blocked when an opaque structure forces them to solve a problem with a quick fix, rather than a sustainable system.

The core realization for the leader is that they are actively wasting the company’s most valuable resource—execution capacity—by failing to design a process that enables it.

Three Pillars of an Enabling Structure

To fix a low 'Process' score, the leader must intervene strategically in the design of the work itself, not the behavior of the worker.

1. Define and Guard the Handover Norms

   Processes often collapse at the handoff points between team members or departments. A robust Enabling Structure clearly defines what is delivered, who is responsible for receiving it, and what the acceptance criteria are. This clarifies norms and frees the Doers from waiting on ambiguous inputs. The key is to design the process for predictability, which unlocks Speed.

2. Trade Compliance for Autonomy

   An inefficient process is often over-engineered by a fear of error. You must grant the team the autonomy to choose the means—the path of execution—provided they adhere to the clear, compelling ends (Layer 1). This is particularly critical for Developers who need the freedom to choose the right tools and architecture. Your job is to define the outcome (quality/speed/cost), their job is to achieve it.

3. Streamline Feedback Loops

   Chaos thrives where information bottlenecks exist. Expert Coaching (Hackman’s fifth condition) is not a scheduled performance review; it's a structural necessity that provides real-time process reflection. Create structural checkpoints where the team is coached to reflect on how they are working, not just what they are producing. This allows the team to self-correct process flaws before they become bottlenecks for the Doers and Developers.

Stop Treating Symptoms. Fix the Design.

If your team is suffering from 'bottleneck burnout,' the issue is a failure in structural design that is being masked as low productivity. You can’t solve a design flaw with more motivation.

It's time for a definitive diagnosis.

Take the free, 5-minute Team Diagnostics Check today.

This diagnostic will give you a specific score on your Enabling Structure and generate Actionable Insights tailored to process-related friction. Use this verified data to identify the root structural problem and unblock your highest-impact Doers and Developers immediately.