Stretch Armstrong Ruined Our Expectations

On Two Pages with MBS, Naphtali Bryant, Director of Learning & Organization Development at Netflix, shares John Maxwell's Law of the Rubber Band. In order to be useful, he tells us, a rubber band must be stretched. I agreed until Naphtali concluded by saying, “Even though you’re being stretched, you will always return to who you are and the core of why you do what you do. It’s not going to break you.” Why the disagreement? Because he compares us to Stretch Armstrong.

I owned the seemingly ever-expanding toy as a kid and yes, he does not break, but do you know what happens if you stretch Stretch Armstrong too far? He tears. A leak springs and suddenly the hero you thought was invincible isn't quite so useful anymore. It's tempting to think of ourselves or our team members as endlessly capable of more and more and more. We might describe someone as having an "unbreakable spirit". But overstretching exists, limits exist, and ignoring as much is courting disaster.