The blog for the business leader who cares about profit and values

You’re standing on the edge of an impossibly high bridge overlooking a ravine.

You’ve got a bungee rope tethered to you. And I reassure you that the bungee has its limit at precisely your weight.

Precisely. Optimised to a single gram.

When you’re at the bottom, you’ll get the best bounceback possible because it will be stretched exactly to its limit.

Then just before you jump, I ask you if you drank too much water that morning. Or if you’re wearing slightly heavy shoes. Or are weighing your pockets down with too much change.

Do you feel confident? Would you leap?

That’s the game we’re playing with our calendars. With our project plans. With our growth plans. With our strategic priorities. Or possibly with your income, or your mortgage.

The cult of efficiency would have you optimise everything to within an inch of its life. Precisely an inch.

But life’s not like that. And if you had a slightly bigger breakfast before the bungee, the consequence isn’t that you’ll bounce back slightly less. It’s that you won’t bounce.

That’s why I’m obsessive when I work with leadership teams that the ambitions they have shouldn’t turn into everyone working at full capacity.

Not because I don’t want them to achieve a lot. But precisely because I know that overambition translated into plans at 100% capacity almost always end up achieving less.


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