Every organization has heroes. They're also dangerous. When an organization relies on heroes, the dependence is the problem. Heroes burn out, leave, or get hit by buses. When they go, they take critical knowledge with them.
Good systems assume competence, not excellence. They're designed so that an average person, following the process, gets a reliable result. McDonald's, aviation checklists, code reviews—the system does the heavy lifting.
Growing organizations convert heroics into systems. Plateauing organizations rely on heroics indefinitely. The test: if your best person quits tomorrow, does the work continue? If not, you don't have a system. You have a dependency.
