Exceeding Limits

The following was originally posted on Medium in May of 2016

I used to race cars for nothing more than trophies and bragging rights. Success in racing is all about going right up to the limits of adhesion, but not crossing them. Friction is a funny thing, once you make the transition from traction to sliding, the resistance drops precipitously and things get away from you quickly and with a lot of drama. Trust me, finding yourself suddenly sliding backwards towards a wall at 100 mph will get your attention. But here is the thing, it is impossible to perform at the maximum level, to drive on the limits, without knowing where the limits are, and it is also impossible to know where the limits are without crossing them, and crossing them can be dangerous. In racing, you get opportunities to test the limits under controlled conditions, where the consequences are hopefully little more than a ruined lap or a broken car. Practice and qualifying give drivers opportunities to test and exceed the limits, so that they know where they are. Come race day, even the winner drives just UNDER the limits. The fastest race lap is never as fast as qualifying.

Life doesn’t have practice and qualifying. Everything counts. Exceeding the limits in life is usually messy, particularly when emotions are involved. Once you cross an emotional line, resistance falls and things get away from you quickly and with a lot of drama. People get hurt, regrettable things are said, and everyone leaves with scars. There is no avoiding this if you are trying to perform at the highest levels. But we are relationship based animals. We only fail if we don’t learn something.

A high performance organization tests the limits every day from a lot of different perspectives. You have to expect that you will exceed those limits from time to time, financially and personally, or else you accept that you are not performing at a high enough level (in the words of Mario Andretti, If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.) If you manage risk, you can always recover financially. On the other hand, if you fail to manage relationships, you risk losing everything.

People and relationships are not disposable. We cannot cast anyone aside without losing a little bit of ourselves in the process. This is a fact. Enlightened leaders understand the value of relationships, and our imperative is to apply them every day as rigorously as we apply financial discipline. If we do so, we cannot help but succeed.