Today's Business Lessons
Challenge the box
Have
you ever come across managers who would say, “You need to think outside
the box!”? Those managers believe that change and innovation are
important. So why don’t the desired changes take place?
Here’s the reality: some brave souls will take on the challenge and
be radical in their approaches to problem solving – then their managers
and the HR will reprimand them for violating rules. What some managers
say and how they behave can be totally inconsistent. Many managers who
require their people to “think out of the box” are the very “boxes” that
keep their people from thinking. While these managers mouth platitudes
about the need to be creative, inventive and innovative, they frown on
people who dare challenge conventions and, God forbid, their way of
thinking.
In my seminars, I ask the participants, “Is change important?”
Everyone will say “Yes.” I’ll follow it up with another question: “Do
the managers in your business organization love change?” Here, I begin
to see sheepish smiles. The braver among them would say “No,” while the
others who prefer to play it safe would refuse to comment. Then I’d say,
“The answer to that of course is YES! Your managers love change – Only
if the change comes from them!” And everybody would laugh at the
ridiculousness of the idea of people harping on the need for change, but
fighting change off when they’re required to conform to it.
There are also some companies who mouth platitudes about being
innovative while being hostage to heritage and hopelessly in love with
tradition. And they wonder why the world has passed them by. This is
typical of established and legacy companies. They uphold that rules are
important, and expect everyone to follow. So even if people are
persuaded to “think outside the box,” they get led to stay “inside the
box.”
Not so with upstarts. They try to be different because they have to.
They have to challenge the giants. They have no choice. While the
money-full, resource-rich Goliath-ish companies make war in the
marketplace with their swords and shields, the tiny, budget-challenged
“David” upstarts come with a slingshot and measly pebbles… and a great
faith that, with their ideas, they will defeat the giants. And many of
them actually do.
Incumbents shouldn’t be afraid of equal-sized competitors. They
should be fearful of the unknown, unpredictable and brave upstarts whose
faith in their ideas and unconventional weaponry could kill them with a
blow they neither anticipated nor imagined.
Similarly, in our careers, we need to have the courage to do things differently.
People tend to seek approval from those around them. This is how
we’ve been hard-wired. Most people are afraid to take risks. They
retreat to the safety of their comfort zone without realizing that in a
world where change happens at a ruthless pace, the comfort zone offers
the least amount of safety. Others have given up hope for the best.
They’re just doing their best to avoid the worst. They hide in the
“safety” and “security” of the average!
But creative people challenge convention with their brilliant,
radical and transformative ideas. They’re not worried about hurting
other people’s feelings because they believe that change can be for the
better. Sometimes, however, they’re gravely misunderstood, and they get
hurt in the process.
Seek for personal growth. Read books. Study. Attend seminars. Even
the non-company-sponsored ones. Invest in learning. Be ready and willing
to take creative risks, but only those that are legal and moral. George
Bernard Shaw said, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the
unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
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