Now if you have a new project, a new assignment what are the chances that you want to put the same best person onto this new task. 

Studies show that most bosses develop an unconscious bias to over depend on a few key people. It’s the same with sports teams where they become over dependant on star players. As more load is put onto the back of the same people a few things start to happen

• The rest of the team feels less engaged, less appreciated and less valued – after all they were not considered for these new assignments

• The performance of the stars starts to become shaky. In a few areas they start to perform less than perfectly. This may not be so obvious as they may step up and work even harder.

• Sometimes the stars burnout. They give up or become dejected. There are many cases of mid career burnout, heart attack or people simply quitting as they cannot carry on as usual

A fast running thoroughbred horse like a top performing manager can help you win races. However you need to keep the workload light. You need to set goals clearly, have a light hand of support ( a light jockey) and then set them free. You need to give them adequate rest and relaxation time so that they can recover. You need to invest into their training and skill building .

Over loading your best horse with more weight of projects, more assignments, more goals will turn them into a load carrying donkey. They will not win races anymore. They will be busy doing the 100s of things tasked of them. They will be grumpy knowing that the others around them do not have to carry the same load as they do.

A simple recipe is to ensure that you have clarity on your top 3-5 goals / success drivers. Behind each should be your best people chasing them with focus and clarity. When you are tempted to overload them with priorities 6-10 remember it will cost you 

• It will cost you priorities 1-5 which really matter to you
• It will cost you the motivation of your best people

As a leader you can afford neither.

So don’t overload your best horse. Instead take off the weights off them and watch them run to their goals.  Your best people and horses are born to run. You just need to set them free.