The 12 plates you're spinning
Ever watched a circus performer frantically running between wobbling plates, giving each one a quick spin just before it crashes to the ground?
That's what running a business feels like most days.
Except when one of your plates smashes, it's not entertaining. It's expensive. Clients disappear. Cash dries up. Your team panics. And you're left picking up the pieces whilst everything else wobbles dangerously.
This September, instead of running frantically between crises, what if you could actually see which plates need attention before they hit the floor?
Why This Matters to You
You simply can't watch every plate at once. Some are spinning smoothly. Others are starting to wobble. A few are seconds away from disaster.
Here's the problem: you often don't spot the wobble until it's far too late.
Think about it. A small hiccup in your cash flow doesn't look serious until it snowballs into missing payroll. One grumpy team member seems manageable until they hand in their notice and leave you scrambling to cover their work. A slightly annoyed client feels like nothing to worry about until they quietly switch to your competitor, taking their monthly payments with them.
The danger isn't in the spinning itself. It's in failing to notice the wobble.
This is exactly why so many business owners feel permanently stuck in firefighting mode - always dashing from one emergency to the next, never quite sure if they're making real progress or just keeping everything airborne for another week.
The next four months matter enormously. September feels like a natural reset point - the kids are back at school, summer distractions are over, and we're heading into the crucial year-end period. You can either keep firefighting your way to Christmas, or you can take proper stock now and finish the year much stronger than you started it.
The 12 Plates You're Actually Spinning
When I talk about "12 plates," I'm not picking a random number. These are the 12 essential components that every single business depends on:
Leadership & Strategy - knowing where you're heading and how to get there
Finance & Cash flow - keeping the money flowing in the right direction
People & HR - building and keeping a team that actually works.
Marketing & Visibility - making sure people know you exist.
Sales & Conversion - turning interest into actual customers
Product/Service Design - creating something people genuinely want to buy
Client Delivery & Experience - keeping customers happy once they've paid you
Compliance & Legal - staying on the right side of all the rules
IT, Tools & Systems - making technology work for you, not against you
Reporting & Insights - understanding what's actually happening in your business
Internal Culture & Communication - ensuring everyone's pulling in the same direction
Continuity & Resilience - making sure your business survives unexpected challenges
Here's what makes it really tricky: these aren't separate plates spinning independently. They're all connected. When one wobbles, it often knocks into another. Weak finances create stress for your people. Poor client delivery damages future sales. A culture of unclear communication makes resilience almost impossible.
That's what makes running a business feel so overwhelming. You're not just spinning individual plates - you're spinning plates that keep bumping into each other.
Why Ignoring Wobbles Leads to Crashes
Here's something reassuring: it rarely takes a massive overhaul to prevent a plate from crashing. Often, a small adjustment in exactly the right place - clarifying one confusing process, tightening up one cash control, or documenting one key workflow - can steady the plate before disaster strikes.
But if you ignore it, the damage multiplies quickly.
A missed invoice becomes a cash crisis. A delayed client project becomes a lost account. An unclear job role becomes a resignation letter.
The truth is, most businesses don't fail because of one huge, dramatic disaster. They fail because someone left a wobble unattended until it became unfixable.
The Blind Spot Problem
Most owners can't actually see the wobble developing, because you're far too close to everything. You're buried in the daily noise and urgent tasks.
What feels desperately urgent today - the client email that needs answering, the phone that won't stop ringing, the supplier asking awkward questions - gets your complete attention. Meanwhile, the real weak spot quietly grows more dangerous in the background.
It's like staring intently at the plate that's already spinning perfectly, whilst the one two sticks away wobbles dangerously. By the time you finally look up, it's already smashed on the floor.
That's exactly why gut feeling isn't enough. You need something objective to show you the whole picture.
How Diagnostics Reveal the Wobbles
This is where proper diagnostics become a game-changer. A thorough diagnostic scores each of your 12 plates objectively, like a business health check.
High scores? These plates are spinning beautifully - ignore them for now. Medium scores? They're starting to wobble - worth keeping an eye on. Low scores? They're seconds from disaster - fix these immediately.
Suddenly you're not guessing anymore. You can see the entire performance at once, with clear signals telling you exactly where to run first.
Think of it like switching on bright lights in a cluttered, dark room. In the darkness, everything feels equally urgent - you're tripping over boxes, bumping into furniture, trying to remember where you left important things. Flick those lights on, and it becomes immediately obvious: that corner is completely clear, but this pile of stuff definitely needs sorting out.
That's exactly the clarity diagnostics provide.
Smart Sequencing, Not Superhero Stunts
You don't need to keep every single plate in perfect view all the time. That's completely impossible, even for the most capable business owner.
With diagnostics, you can sequence your attention intelligently. Focus on the ones wobbling most dangerously first, give them the attention they need, then calmly move on to the next priority.
This is the crucial difference between building resilience and burning out completely. Instead of dashing frantically between all 12 plates hoping for the best, you're working through your priorities in the smartest possible order.
It's not about heroic efforts or superhuman powers. It's about intelligent triage.
Training Others to Spot the Wobbles
The real breakthrough happens when you're not the only person watching for problems.
With diagnostics and simple systems in place, you can train your team to spot wobbles early and make their own small corrections. That's when you transform from a solo circus performer into a proper ringmaster.
And here's the brilliant part: your business doesn't just survive when you're personally watching every single plate - it keeps running smoothly even when you step back completely. That's real freedom.
Small Adjustments, Big Protection
Here's the truly comforting truth: progress doesn't require giant leaps or dramatic changes. It's all about small, well-placed adjustments.
A wobbling plate often needs nothing more than a quick conversation, a simple process written down clearly, or clarifying something that's been causing confusion. Diagnostics tell you exactly where those small adjustments will create the biggest stabilising effect.
Instead of feeling like you're failing everywhere at once, you know precisely which small action will make the most difference. You're not trying to rebuild the entire circus from scratch. You're just keeping the plates spinning steadily.
Takeaways for Steady Spinning
You can't eliminate complexity from your business - it's naturally complicated. But you absolutely can stop it from being fragile and unpredictable.
The difference between resilience and chaos isn't working harder or longer hours. It's diagnostics. Knowing exactly which plates are wobbling, and giving them attention before they crash.
So here's my question for you: which plate in your business is wobbling right now - and do you know for certain, or are you just guessing based on whatever's shouting loudest today?