“More is more, babe!”

This is what my husband exclaimed one weekend when we were out with friends. And it sounds super silly, but we were discussing the topic of desserts which is really his favorite thing. “When there are more desserts… there are more!” So in this case, “more is more” was a funny way of saying that more is better.

In many cases, he is correct.

When more IS better:

✅ Toppings on soft serve

✅ Systems for accountability

✅ Clients turning into profit

✅ Acknowledgment and appreciation at work

✅ Hours of peaceful sleep

✅ French fries or tater-tots

✅ Wine without whining

‘More’ is often considered better with delicious food, good people, fun activities, kicking butt, and rest.

Sometimes though, more is not better.

When more is NOT better:

⚠️ Forms of communication in the workplace

⚠️ Priorities

⚠️ Meetings

⚠️ Revenue at the expense of your sanity

⚠️ When you don’t have capacity for all the clients coming your way

⚠️ Fast & Furious movie sequels

⚠️ Whining without wine

‘More’ is most frequently NOT better when it means more work.

• More forms of communication result in cracks, breakdowns, and misunderstandings. No one knows exactly where to find what they need, and information does not get transferred on time or to the right people. Short cuts are taken, and there is a very UN-fun “Game of Telephone.”

• More priorities means that everything is urgent, and nothing is truly a priority. The result is poor execution or feelings of failure. Everything gets done with mediocrity, instead of some things being done great. And when people start off with a long list they set them selves up to feel failure because their expectations were unrealistic from the beginning.

• Revenue at the expense of your sanity can often be tied to not having capacity for all the clients coming your way. Saying “yes” may be good for the bank account but it causes leadership and teams to be overworked and burned out. It can also creates opportunities for missed deadlines, balls to be dropped, and decreased quality for clients (i.e. short cuts).

• And meetings. More meetings. Don’t get me wrong, I think meetings are great. But I find most of my clients have meetings because they think they ‘should.’ Or meetings that are just venting sessions. Or meetings about the last meeting because there were not conclusions or problems solved, so they needed another meeting to actually get anywhere. More meetings can be better, but only when they have a purpose, an agenda, and a result (meetings that matter). **I find this one funny – “Meetings. A place where minutes are taken but hours are wasted” 🙂

• More Fast & Furious movie sequels. Well… this one needs no explanation. We just don’t need more.

More of all of these things means more work. More work cleaning up errors, putting out fires, and repeating what was already done but not finished.

QUESTION > Does something come to mind right away for you? Something that seems like more would be better (in theory), but ends up causing harm for your leadership, teams, or the organization as a whole?