RunningOUR MODEL OF BALANCE tends to be quite static.

Stable.  Unchanging.

Unachievable in real life.

Because, in real life, you’re constantly running.  Things are changing every minute, every day, every year.

The very instant you think you’ve achieved stability, it gets destroyed by the things you’re doing and what’s happening in the world.

So does that mean that any sense of balance is hopeless?  Not at all!

Think of it as riding a bicycle.    When you’re in motion, that’s the only time you CAN balance.  When you stop, you need a support in order to be stable.

Likewise, in business, the mere fact that you’re moving helps you to adjust dynamically.  Customer demand changes from hour to hour?  No problem, we’ve got the capacity and flexibility to take care of it.

Notice that I included flexibility.

Managers think about adding capacity to handle worst-case situations.  But that’s like adding more wheels to your bike just in case a gust of wind comes up.  It’s overkill, it’s expensive, and it gets in the way.

Designing your organization to be flexible and adaptable is much more cost-effective.  But it usually means that you need to trust your employees more to use their common sense.  Unless you want to be constantly involved directly in every tradeoff, you’ll have to expand your intuition and judgment to include others.

Which means – how about this – you may be able to take a day off!

Which means that you’re able to have that work/life balance you’ve been seeking.  Time off to watch the kid’s game?  No problem!

Invest in your people.

Develop them.

Then trust them.