When more resources start holding you back

When Alice took over the marketing team at a fast-growing startup, she noticed they were drowning in tools and budgets. There were half a dozen analytics platforms, dozens of contractors, and unlimited ad spend. Yet campaign performance was downhill and confusion reigned. Alice suspected the problem wasn’t the lack of resources; it was too many. She asked her lead to pause all but two analytics tools and cut the ad budget by 30%. Almost immediately, the team found focus. Meetings shrank from two hours to thirty minutes, and tensions dissolved.

Alice collected data on campaign ROI: conversions rose by 15%, and creative turnaround time halved. She realized the old saying “more is better” was only half true. There was a point where extra staff and funds simply created noise—nobody knew who owned what, and no one felt personally accountable. Leaning into constraints, Alice discovered deeper collaboration and sharper ideas.

Behind this shift lies the inverted-U concept: adding resources helps up to a point, then the benefits level off and can reverse. Imagine pouring water into a small cup—it fills nicely, but overflow is waste. By finding her team’s optimal capacity, Alice used the exact right amount of resources to drive greater focus, creativity, and results.

You know the feeling when you’ve loaded up every possible tool and still can’t get traction? Try this: pick one area—time, budget, staff—where you’re at ‘more than enough.’ Note how your effort shifts when it’s scarce versus abundant. Then scale back deliberately—say, cut ten minutes from meetings or reduce your budget by 20 percent—and see if that added pressure sparks sharper ideas. A week in, check your metrics and tweak again. Constraints can fuel breakthroughs—give it a try this week.