Remember in The Parent Trap when Lindsay Lohan’s characters spend the entire movie scheming to get their parents back together through increasingly elaborate plans? They could have just… talked to them. But no, they needed to control every detail, orchestrate every moment, and make sure everything happened exactly their way. Spoiler alert: it got messy before it got better.
That’s me in most work situations. I’m both Lindsay Lohans—the one with the perfectly planned strategy AND the one panicking when things don’t go according to plan.
The Anxiety Spiral
When I start to feel the anxiety of not making a decision and moving into action, it begins with a familiar tightness in my chest that expands into low-level panic. I get clammy, my mind goes blank on everything except finding a path to resolution, and I become increasingly difficult to work with as my frustration builds.
This has led to more than one mistake and left more than one situation with others feeling just as frustrated as I am.
When I was a developer, I was used to sitting in refinement meetings where conversations would churn around technical implementation. I always felt like there was more to learn, and I never wanted us to make an incorrect choice. But now, in leadership, when I’m in meetings where my developers seem to talk in circles without making tangible progress on refinements, I start to lose it. We get caught in a swirl of what-ifs and future-proofing, completely throwing the agile process out the window.
When “Just Let Me Handle It” Backfires
Recently, I made a classic efficiency-over-effectiveness mistake. I agreed to let two of my senior developers work on a new feature set that involved separating two different user experiences with largely the same functionality and a new identity provider. In my mind, I was being efficient—trusting my team, moving quickly, not micromanaging.
The reality? There was no insight into progress, missed requirements piled up, and what should have been a straightforward feature became a months-long saga. My desire to move fast and avoid process actually created more work, more confusion, and more stress for everyone involved.
I had fallen into what I now call the efficiency trap—prioritizing speed and my preferred way of doing things over actually getting the right outcome.
The Coach Question That Broke My Brain
When my Torch coach asked me which I valued more—efficiency or effectiveness—my brain just went “buzzzzzzzz.” It didn’t compute. What do you mean there’s a difference? Getting things done correctly and quickly is what matters, right?
But the more I sat with it, the more I realized I was creating unnecessary anxiety for myself and my team. There’s real power in letting go of needing to do something a certain way within a certain timeframe.
This question hit particularly hard because my team is currently navigating two critical challenges:
- We need to improve our predictability quarter over quarter to help with deliverable timelines
- We need to maximize the work we can produce with our current team size
I realized I needed to find a reasonable middle ground. Sometimes moving quickly and being efficient is the right approach. Other times, being effective—getting the right outcome—is all that matters at the end of the day.
Putting It Into Practice
Since the “just cut me a ticket and let me hack at it” disaster, I’ve tried to be more mindful about when I apply the brakes to enforce process and when I need to make a quick call and move on.
For our upcoming quarterly planning, we’re taking time to go through epics with a fine-tooth comb, making sure requirements are defined and we’re considering all aspects of technical implementation. Maybe the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction, but I think it’s good practice for the team. Once the actual development work begins, there should be less churn because we’ll know everything from day one.
(Stay tuned for a future update on how this approach affects our effectiveness and predictability.)
The Root of the Problem
This need for control and hyper-efficiency comes from being a Type A, people-pleasing, teacher’s pet. I’ve been this way my whole life, and I think it stems from wanting to be good at what I do—starting with being successful in school and following through to today.
There’s this underlying script that I’ve been successful because I get things done my way, quickly. Not because I was just getting the right things done, period.
How This Is Changing How I Lead
This framework is still new for me in my leadership journey, but I’ve already noticed some shifts in how I approach my role:
I delegate more thoughtfully. Instead of either micromanaging or completely hands-off approaches, I’m delegating to people I trust to be effective, with clear guidelines for check-ins, observable progress markers, and well-defined scope and requirements.
I ask better questions. Rather than jumping straight to “how do we do this faster,” I’m starting with “what outcome are we actually trying to achieve here?”
I’m more comfortable with different approaches. If someone on my team has a different way of reaching the same effective outcome, I’m learning to let them run with it instead of redirecting them to my preferred method.
The truth is, some of my best work has happened when I focused on being effective first, then found efficient ways to execute. The efficiency trap had me believing that speed and control were always the answer, but sometimes the fastest path to the right outcome is the one that feels slower in the moment.
And just like those scheming twins in The Parent Trap, sometimes the most elaborate plan isn’t the one that gets you where you want to go—it’s the one that’s willing to adapt when life throws you a curveball.
What about you? Have you ever found yourself caught in the efficiency trap? I’d love to hear how you’ve learned to balance getting things done with getting the right things done.