Why Your Business Plates Keep Crashing

I still remember the smell of popcorn and sawdust, the bright lights cutting through the circus tent’s darkness, and the collective gasp of the audience as the plate spinner took centre stage.

Watch the plates spin faster.

As a child, I was mesmerised. The circus performer starts with one plate on a single pole. Simple. Controlled. The plate spins smoothly while the performer maintains perfect balance. Even at eight years old, I could appreciate the elegance of that single, perfect rotation.

Then comes the second plate.

The excitement builds. Now the performer must divide attention between two spinning plates. Still manageable, but the rhythm changes. Each plate gets slightly less attention than before. I remember leaning forward in my seat, completely captivated.

The third plate arrives. Then the fourth.

The crowd’s energy is electric now. We’re all willing the performer to succeed, to keep adding more plates, to push the boundaries of what seems possible.

The mathematics of attention become brutal.

With four plates spinning, each one receives 25% of the performer’s focus. The performer moves faster now, rushing between poles to keep each plate from wobbling off its perch. But as a child, I only saw the magic, not the mounting pressure.

But here’s where most business owners miss the critical insight.

The performer keeps adding plates without removing any. Fifth plate. Sixth. Seventh. The crowd cheers as the spectacle grows more impressive. I remember clapping wildly, completely caught up in the moment.

The system appears stable until it suddenly isn’t.

I’ve watched this same pattern destroy promising businesses. The owner starts with one core service, one main client focus, one primary revenue stream. Everything spins smoothly.

Then opportunity knocks.

A new service line. An additional market segment. Another revenue stream. A fresh strategic objective. A different growth target. Each addition seems logical in isolation. Each promises growth and diversification.

But here’s what I see happening in businesses across the country: business owners pile on objectives like a plate spinner adding poles. “This quarter we’ll increase market share AND improve customer retention AND launch that new product line AND optimise our digital presence AND restructure operations.”

Five major objectives. Five spinning plates. Each one demanding strategic focus, resource allocation, and leadership attention.

The business owner becomes a plate spinner.

But plates don’t spin themselves.

Every new initiative demands attention, resources, and energy. Every objective requires strategic thinking, progress tracking, and course correction. The owner rushes between priorities, giving each less focus than it deserves. Quality suffers. Customer experience degrades. Team members feel scattered across competing objectives.

I’ve seen leadership teams burn out trying to hit six different targets simultaneously. Marketing pulls in one direction for the brand refresh objective. Sales pushes another way for the revenue growth target. Operations scrambles to meet the efficiency improvement goal. Meanwhile, the customer experience initiative gets forgotten in the chaos.

Each objective becomes a plate wobbling on its pole, demanding immediate attention just as another one starts to slip.

The breaking point arrives without warning.

One plate wobbles. The owner rushes to steady it, but two others start spinning off-balance. In the frantic attempt to save everything, the performer loses control entirely.

I’ll never forget that moment when the first plate fell. The sharp crack as it hit the ground, followed by another, then another. The performer’s face showed pure panic as they darted desperately between poles, but it was too late. The cascade had begun.

Every plate crashes.

The silence that followed was deafening. Where moments before there had been cheers and applause, now there was only the sound of ceramic fragments being swept away. The disappointment was palpable – not just mine, but the entire audience’s. We’d all invested emotionally in the performance, and we’d all witnessed the spectacular failure.

That childhood memory taught me something profound about the nature of collapse, though I wouldn’t understand it for years.

Your business faces the same physics. Attention divides. Resources stretch. Systems strain under the weight of competing priorities.

The solution isn’t better multitasking.

The solution is strategic subtraction.

Before adding your next plate, ask these questions:

Which current plate can you remove? What initiative delivers the lowest return on attention? Which objective is diluting your focus without delivering proportional results? Where are you spinning plates out of habit rather than strategy?

The best performers know when to say no.

They understand that capacity has limits. They recognise that sustainable growth requires focus, not fragmentation.

Your business can handle more plates, but only if you first master the ones already spinning.

The Capacity Audit

Take inventory of your current plates:

List every major initiative, project, or focus area consuming your attention. Rate each on impact and resource requirements. Identify the bottom 20% that drain energy without delivering proportional returns.

Stop spinning those plates.

The circus performer who masters five plates outperforms the one who drops ten. Your business follows the same principle.

The Addition Rule

Before adding any new plate, remove an existing one.

This forces strategic thinking. It prevents the gradual accumulation of low-value activities that eventually overwhelm your capacity.

Every yes requires a no.

Your attention is finite. Your team’s energy has limits. Your resources aren’t unlimited.

Treat them accordingly.

The Focus Dividend

When you stop spinning unnecessary plates, something remarkable happens. The remaining plates spin smoother. You can give each one proper attention. Quality improves. Results compound.

This is the focus dividend.

Fewer plates, better performance. Clearer priorities, stronger execution. Reduced complexity, increased effectiveness.

The circus performer who removes three plates doesn’t lose 30% of the show. They gain 100% more control over what remains.

Your business works the same way.

Stop adding plates.

Start removing them instead.

The audience will applaud your mastery, not your multitasking.