What is a case clinic?
A facilitated, case-based learning experience in which participants examine one realistic workplace challenge in depth, explore what may be happening beneath the surface, consider different perspectives and possible responses, and identify practical actions that could improve the situation.
Unlike a traditional webinar, the emphasis is not primarily on information-sharing. Participants are invited to examine, diagnose, discuss and respond
About this Case Clinic:
Dependable people are valuable to every team. They are often the people trusted with complex assignments, difficult clients, additional responsibilities and last-minute requests.
But there can be an unintended consequence:
The more capable someone proves to be, the more the team may begin to depend on their capability.
Over time, workload, knowledge, informal helping and responsibility can become concentrated around a small number of reliable people — sometimes while their visible performance remains strong.
The Competence Trap invites seniors and managers to explore an important leadership question:
“When does trusting a capable person quietly become over-relying on them?”
Through a realistic professional case, participants will consider how workload, strengths, capability development, delegation and team dependency interact — and what sustainable leadership may require.
The detailed case, decision process and facilitation tools are intentionally introduced during the live experience rather than disclosed in advance.
Why this matters
Capability concentration can affect:
There is also an important leadership tension:
Allocating work to the person most likely to deliver may be efficient today — but can create capability risk tomorrow.
CA2025 already places responsibilities such as coaching junior team members, delegation, setting expectations, monitoring progress, providing feedback and developing others within leadership capability.
Its teamwork outcomes also emphasise dependable contribution, communication, mutual support and awareness of how one person's work affects the wider team.
The proposed revised IRBA Competency Framework takes this further by linking supervision with workload, well-being and sustainable delivery.
The foundation
The Case Clinic is grounded primarily in positive psychology and workplace well-being research, with a particular interest in the relationship between:
Strengths and strengths use
Highly dependable employees often bring valuable strengths such as perseverance, responsibility, teamwork, kindness and leadership. The developmental question is not whether these strengths are good or bad, but whether they are being used effectively and sustainably.
Strengths overuse
A strength can sometimes become less helpful when repeatedly relied upon without sufficient boundaries, recovery or complementary resources.
Workplace resources and demands
Sustainable performance depends not only on individual resilience, but also on workload, role clarity, available support, autonomy, relationships and organisational resources.
Capability development
A healthy team does not simply depend on its strongest people; it deliberately grows capability across the team.
Sustainable performance
Strong output today should not quietly compromise future capacity, development or retention.
The experience is facilitated through an executive-positive coaching approach. Rather than providing simplistic answers, participants are encouraged to examine assumptions, consider multiple perspectives and arrive at practical leadership responses appropriate to their context.
Leadership-development principles are incorporated where relevant, particularly around responsibility, delegation, development, accountability and sustainable team performance
By the end of the Case Clinic, participants should be better able to:
The Case Clinic will explore themes including:
Participants will leave with a practical reflection framework to support future workload and capability conversations, without requiring disclosure of confidential employee or firm information during the session.
This Case Clinic is suitable for professionals who have responsibility for people, work allocation, review, supervision or development, including:
It may be particularly valuable for individuals who find themselves:
