One of the most enriching things about being a B2B writer is that I spend a lot of my phone time interviewing fascinating, accomplished people in leadership roles.
Yesterday, I got to ask an operations expert what gets in the way of companies building efficient remote onboarding programs. And one of the biggest enemies she saw is a business’s natural desire to grow and constantly rework things to be better.
This can be a good thing (best practices, new tools, etc.) but also a bad thing (constant change, declining morale because nothing sticks, etc.).
Can you see where this is headed? I think it’s another layer of the onion, or maybe just a tangential shallot, to Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma. The very thing that makes us high performers (learn! strive! grow!) can lead us away from the “balance” we say we want in our work and personal lives.
Why do we resist balance? When things are going well, we lean in and burnout. When things are going poorly, we lean back and spiral down. In nature, equilibrium or homeostasis is the default. But for entrepreneurs and high performers, it seems like something that has to be engineered very carefully.