Something happened at work the other day that got me thinking about our capacity to care.

A project that was my responsibility wasn’t being delivered in a way that exceeded expectations. Heck, it didn’t even meet expectations. Truth be told, it disappointed those who were counting on it. And that is not the Pro-Tech way. It’s not my department’s way. And it’s not my way.

It involved the collection, organization and sharing of some inventory data – and for a company that provides value with the promise of availability, it’s pretty important stuff. And it simply wasn’t being organized or shared in a way that provided value.

Luckily, the timing was such that we were able to both understand and correct the issue.

I was angry (still am) that it happened. There were many reasons (always are) – but ultimately, as most things do, it comes down throwing all the excuses out the door and taking a good hard look at yourself.

If I cared enough, would this have happened?

If I cared enough…

I thought I did. I love my job. I love this company. I like, trust and admire every single person who works here. The culture of excellence and integrity here is palpable.

I work hard every day. I’m passionate and energetic.

So what was it that allowed for this failure?

Again, I kept coming back to our capacity to care. Are there limits? How do we manage the things we are responsible for so excellence is always delivered?

First of all, our capacity to care can be measured in two ways. The first, the vertical if you will, is our level or degree of caring, which I think is unlimited. I don’t think there’s a cap on how much we can care for or love something. There is no yardstick that can measure the love or care I have for my family. It’s like an infinite number – it can, and does go on and on.

The second, the horizontal if you will, is our capacity of caring, which I think has limits. How many things can you care for? How many balls can you juggle? How many things can you give that full degree of caring to? I think this is where we start falling down.

I think this can be understood a bit more when we look at people who devote much of their lives to being great at one single thing. Einstein is a great example. He devoted his life to his one great passion, physics. He changed the world because his degree of caring for theoretical physics was off the charts. But dig a little deeper and you find out Einstein not a good husband. He was not a good father. The width of his caring was limited by the degree of his caring for one thing over everything else. He could only juggle one ball.

History is filled with example after example of the same types of individuals - men and women who could juggle one or maybe two balls, but with an excellence few could ever match.

I often wonder if that is one of the key ingredients for greatness – the ability (the weakness?) to let all things in your life take a back seat to your one, great passion.

Is it simply how some people are wired? Is it something we can actually manage?

Most of us, I would guess, are not on the extreme end of things here. Most of us care a lot, care enough about many things - and care a great deal about a smaller, select set of things.

At some point we all tend to overload, and that is when we start dropping the ball.

And this is not an excuse. I think it simply the reality we live in.

Just as you can’t drive your car 100 mph everywhere, you can’t over extend your capacity to care. Both result it crashes.

So what do we do? Going back to the juggling theme – I would argue that everyone (with a little effort) can learn to juggle 3 balls pretty well. Some skilled jugglers can add a fourth and maybe a fifth ball – but once you hit six, seven, eight – the drops are going to come hard and fast.

How does this translate back to us, our commitments, and our capacity to care?

Well, I think it means we need to be careful what we take responsibility for. It means we need to develop an understanding of our capacity limits (how many balls we can juggle). For most of us it will be three to five – and that is a number most business and leadership books settle on.

What it really means is when those fifth, sixth and seventh balls are introduced, you look for the right person who has the capacity to take one from you.

Whatever it means, the important thing is we take these moments, these opportunities that are thrust upon us to reflect, learn and grow.

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Have you had any experiences like this? I’d love to hear about them. Please drop me a note at:  jluke@protechcorp.com