What Stretch Armstrong can teach us about trying to do too much
Kids love toys that they can pull, bend, stretch and push to the limits and that’s what toy company Kenner introduced to the world in 1976 with Stretch Armstrong. He was billed as the toy that could be stretched up to 4x his original size, which was 15”, without tearing or breaking. Armstrong was the first toy of its type to hit the market and a hot item among kids during that generation. Priced at $11 when it first hit the market, vintage boxes sell on the open market today over $700. You can walk the toy aisles now and see how Armstrong made a big impact on kids as the concept of a bendy, stretchy and moldable toy is still evident today.
Armstrong was featured as a blond hunk of a body builder type who could handle the pressure to be stretched and manipulated. He was a modern day superhero without the comics where kids could pretend to fight crime with extending his arms. The marketing campaign was brilliant as it featured words like; “stretchable super hero,” and “he becomes bigger than a building,” and my favorite, “you can tie him in a knot and he goes back to his original shape.” The campaign continually used the terms, “stretch him again and again.” Of course, too much stretching from overly ambitious children and he could easily tear.
Kenner gave detailed instructions on how to fix a tear in Armstrong’s body, should you get a little too overzealous and stretch him beyond his limits. The fix was a reported adhesive bandage that was rumored to never actually work. The only thing that could actually fix him was to throw him away and start over with a new $11 toy. A brand new 15” bag of corn syrup which was the secret behind his ability to stretch. The R&D department was apparently struggling to come up with ideas as Armstrong was released by Kenner in 1976 and in 1977 they landed the contract for Star Wars changing the history of the company forever. There was no corn syrup in an AT-AT Walker or a Han Solo figurine.
While Stretch Armstrong still lives on today with larger options, mini-options, and toys that resemble his likeness; one thing remains the same, if you stretch, push, pull, bend, and mold the blond bodybuilder too much, he will still break with hard to fix wounds.
As leaders we are stretched, pushed, pulled, bent, and molded into many situations, and directions each day. Our team needs something, our leaders need something, we have deadlines to accomplish, projects to move forward, airplanes to catch, internal and external customers to please, and we’re supposed to do it all with a smile. We’re expected to be somewhat unflappable through the challenges and always go right back to the original shape they found us in.
Leaders are supposed to put on a face of confidence and flawlessly move from one meeting to another essentially molding their bodies and minds back to the perfect shape they were hired in. The day a leader walks in the door is the equivalent of the day a kid takes a Stretch Armstrong out of the package. They are in perfect mental and physical condition and they are ready for the road ahead. Over time we must take care of ourselves to ensure we can be stretched in a million directions and return to the perfect shape and size from event to event.
Stretch Armstrong had no ability to delegate. He took every pull and stretch that a kid would give him until the point he tore and was rendered useless. Leaders must be able to delegate tasks and filter their mental state, and understand when to say no. Good leaders can prioritize their needs, delegate to competent team members and or managers, and they know their exact breaking point ensuring they never reach it. Your company needs your physical and mental state to return to the day they hired you, a clean slate, and you can’t give your best self if you’re unable to return to the original, out of the box mentality on a consistent basis.
As a leader, you also have a contract to uphold with your team that ensures you stretch them just enough to help them grow and develop but not too far to the point they develop a tear. A tear in the workplace isn’t un-fixable, but it can have ramifications on teams of people. Remember that adhesive bandage that Kenner introduced with Armstrong? Yeah, it didn’t work very well and even when it did work, things were never the same.
The marketing campaign for Stretch Armstrong was similar to the way we recruit employees and future leaders. Organizations are always looking for people who are, “stretchable superheroes” and “who can be tied in knots and return to their original shapes.” After all, being a leader is all about being flexible and moldable, in fact I’ve seen that word on many job descriptions over the years. No company is seeking someone who refuses to push their limits and boundaries.
We have an obligation to ourselves and to our teams to minimize the stretching that causes tears in our people. There are three principles that a leader can pay attention to in order to help their teams avoid tearing through doing too much:
Time Management
We pay our teams to work 40 hours in a week and we should uphold that contract. While our employees will often spend hours on nights and weekends working towards a project, we should ensure we are giving our people the tools to succeed during normal business hours. If we are asking for work outside of the normal time frame we should reward them as such with all the right mechanisms
As leaders it is our job to lean in and help identify where an employee may not be utilizing their time properly. Often our staff can’t see their own inability to manage time as they will get caught up on the wrong projects and spend too much time on something that otherwise could be accomplished in a fraction of the time. We can help with time blocking, prioritization, and removing any roadblocks that exist in order to help our teams progress a project towards a deadline without their focus being pulled for too long on the wrong thing. We can’t identify time management issues though without being involved and aware of our teams work load. Out of touch leaders will miss this boat for many years and lose people as a result.
Delegation
We must preach and teach delegation as we’re not superheroes and we can’t do it all. Good leaders surround themselves with individuals who can handle delegation and who know how to manage their time accordingly. Leaders who can’t delegate only further stretch the limits of themselves and their teams. Delegation is often viewed as a weakness to some leaders but that is a massive myth. Leaders who can’t delegate end up starting a project and handing it off messier than if they would have allowed the expert with better time management skills on their staff to handle it in the first place.
The ability to delegate is a skill we should recruit and celebrate in the workplace at a higher level as smart delegation moves projects forward to the end zone at a rapid rate.
When we fail to delegate, we start a project and get it to 30% completed before realizing we’re either not the subject matter expert (someone else on the team is) or we don’t have the bandwidth to move the project another 70% down the field. When we hand the project off to someone else they have to un-do 10% of the work we did because we didn’t give it the attention needed and then end up causing more work in the end. Delegation is a way to avoid stretching yourself too thin and avoid tearing.
Meaningful Work
Every leader and employee must ask themselves, “Am I doing meaningful work that I believe in?” If the answer is yes, then few individuals will ever consider themselves stretched to their limit. Leaders and individual contributors who love their work and are bought into the company mission will go above and beyond for years to come to be a part of something special and to invest in their own growth. The key to this all is that we must be honest with ourselves when we’re not doing meaningful work and when we don’t believe in the company mission and vision. Unhappy employees are easily stretched too thin when they don’t love what they do. We must love what we do in order to allow the mental and physical growth to take place.
Stretch Armstrong can teach us that by trying to do too much we will eventually tear. Follow these principles above to avoid burnout for yourself and your team.
by Scott Bond