Thoughts of Another Traveler…

You might be familiar with the old circus act of the “Spinning Plate” performer.  Remember the one who could put a plate on a stick and spin the plate without dropping it.  By the end of the act, the performer had a plate in each hand, one in each foot, one on top of their head, and holding one in their mouth.  What a talent to possess.  One cannot help but admire the balance, concentration, and agility it takes to keep multiple plates spinning without breaking them.

There is a problem when we enter this “Spinning Plate” circus act in our business practices and daily personal lives.    Our culture seems driven with the mentality that the most successful people are the people who can “Spin” the most plates.  By default, all of us find ourselves sucked into this mentality, and even feeling guilty if we are not “Spinning” as many plates as the super successful (busy) people.  We might even find a plate or two to add to an empty hand just so we can show that we do not have idle hands (since those are the “Devil’s Workshop”).  Soon we find ourselves expending all of our mental and physical energy making sure we do not drop a plate, while forgetting why we are spinning the plate in the first place.

I truly believe that the “Spinning Plate” syndrome is inherently linked to numerous failures, weaknesses, and communication issues in our business practices.  I believe this can become especially true as you work your way up the proverbial corporate ladder.  The culture in most companies is to move successful people to take more responsibility, handle more people, expand the tree of reports, and provide expertise in multiple areas.  This seems to be the practical way to think and operate.  The reality many times is that we end up producing high level “Plate Spinners” who simply have more pressure not to let a plate break. Despite all of the advice we receive from mental health and human resources experts about burn-out, family time, mental focus, team building, and productive communication—we still fight the stigma that unless we are working long hours every day, and sending e-mails all weekend we are not worthy of being handed more plates to spin. 

An example of this is what I might term the obsessive, compulsive meeting disorder.  We have this brilliant logic that tells us that successful people have to spend every waking hour in a meeting or on a call.  It actually becomes a cool competition at the beginning of each meeting.  We spend the first five minutes of each of our 12 meetings every day bragging about how many meetings we have already been in, and how many more we have to go.  During the meeting, we find a good percentage of the attendees working on prepping for the next meeting—confirmed by the often repeated phrase, “I’m sorry, could you repeat that question, I was distracted for a moment.”  The real fun happens during the last 5 minutes of each meeting while trying to schedule the follow-up meeting to the follow-up meeting.  It becomes a contest to see who has the most difficulty scheduling an opening because they already have so many meetings planned on their calendar for the next 3 years.  You get a badge of honor if you are the one who needs to shift several meetings around to squeeze in yet another meeting—proving that you are a great team player, while being a person of utmost importance.   In between the fifth and sixth meetings of the day we might even take three minutes to post on Social media how many meetings we have had with an exhausted face emoticon.  You know what I call this—“Plate Spinning”.

Here is what obsessive, compulsive meeting disorder creates:

• Limited time to prepare by reading documents, performing deep-research needed to bring value
• Limited time to digest, and process subject matter post meeting
• Limited ability to bring the RIGHT people together to solve issues
• Limited time to THINK—Much less time to THINK outside the box
• Limited Success in Solving critical issues correctly
• A Reactive instead of Proactive culture
• Managers and Teams content to Operate in “Firefighter” mode

“Plate Spinning” also has obvious effects on our personal lives.  If you live in circus performance mode in your career, it is likely that you will bring that culture home with you.  We tend to find ourselves living in a vicious cycle of yet adding an entirely separate stack of plates to spin once we leave the workplace and come home.   You worry about dropping work related plates in the evenings, on the weekends, and even on much needed vacations—all the while, some of the most important plates that need attention (such as family, faith, exercise, diet, and rest) are falling and breaking.  In addition, we extend the joy of “Plate Spinning” to our children by placing and pushing them in dozens of activities such as year-round sports, travel teams, music, arts, clubs, and every social event possible.  Although this increases our own “Plate Spinning” to the level of complete madness, we feel a sense of dedication because we have a fear that if our kids do not learn to “Spin Plates” like the Jones’ kids, they might not succeed as a professional athlete someday.

Full disclosure at this point—I am currently caught in a “Plate Spinning” life cycle.  I have a fair share of “Plate Spinners” around me and I tend to be one myself if not very careful.  I did not used to give it much thought in my younger days.  Something about living beyond the the big 5-0 has me doing some careful evaluation.  My kids are off to college, passion in my career is low, stress levels are high, faith is tough, and most days I feel like a hamster on a wheel.  Not the ideal situation I worked, educated, and dreamed for over the years.  Nevertheless, like many of us, I get up every day and get those plates spinning because it is what I feel I have to do to make a living.  I also work hard to rotate the spinning plates according to what I know should be the true priorities—only to end up feeling I am completely out of resources and energy to keep them balanced for total success.

Deep down I feel more and more drawn to simplify things.  I think often of timeless advice that I have given countless times to many I have coached, “Work smarter, not harder.”  I desire to think, to converse, to build relationships, to build and coach teams to tackle problems that make a difference, to read with intent and interest, to analyze and evaluate deeper, and to listen with patience.  I do not want to develop obsessive, compulsive meeting disorder simply to exude and portray importance.  I want to be a performer and contributor without the need to be a circus act famous for acrobatic shuffling of busy-ness.  I ultimately desire a well-balanced life that does not limp into retirement with a mind, body, and soul exhausted from “Plate Spinning” and void of meaning without it.