When times look good, or you think nobody will notice, it’s tempting to overload systems, processes and people.

A little cut here, a small increase in workload there.    A freeze on recruitment, a delay of re-equipping or upgrading.    It has no visible effect on the bottom line.    You get away with it.

So it becomes tempting to do it again.    To ‘keep it lean’, ‘cut no slack’, ask people to ‘lean in’, commit 100% 110%, 120%, 150%.

And again.

And again.

Then, when you’ve cut everything to the bone and built your entire system on just in time, lowest cost, no slack, it doesn’t take much to bring the whole thing crashing down.

It’s not rocket science.   We are part of a system.   Overloading any part of it is not sensible behaviour.  Overloading all of it at once is madness.

Freeloaders will try, of course, because it means they can extract a higher immediate return.   Blind to the fact that they will not be able to enjoy what they extract.

It’s up to the rest of us to prevent them.   For their sakes as well as ours.