Action outside the box?

Nearly every employee in every interview says that they are fully able to “think” outside the box when asked if they are creative and a self-starter. Interestingly enough, most people can actually think outside the box with respect to envisioning “better.” Staff will sit in meetings and happily share many creative ideas on how to make general improvements, enhancements and efficiencies. Like all ideas, a few will be great, most will be OK and a few will be terrible. The magic is in finding the great ones and taking action on them. This leads us to the topic at hand.

The much harder life discipline is the ability to take “action” outside the box. Remember – thinking outside the box really adds no value if it never leads to action. Action outside the box also helps validate that the thinking was genuinely something different than then norm and worthy of the label “outside the box.” To help users in determining which items they should take action on – I have put together a simple set of questions (and guiding answers).

To help with the differentiation of what is “in the box thinking” vs. what is “out of the box thinking”, I will use some simple questions:

• Is your decision to take action or not take action governed by your personal risk tolerance?
  • In other words, if I take action, my boss might blame me for taking the action – so it is much safer for me to do nothing and keep my head low.
  • Fear of blame is by far the biggest inhibitor to taking action in the world today. True innovators and “A” players will always take the risk as the know that nothing will change without taking that critical action. If you want to be perceived as an “Out of the box” person – you must overcome this fear.
• Is your decision to take action influenced by “Big Names”?
  • In other words, IBM or SAP is doing it this way so we should do it this way. Big Name advertising, white papers, industry conferences, and magic quadrants are all specifically designed to KEEP YOU IN THE BOX – THEIR BOX!
  • Something to think about – if all of your competitors are using product, system or service X from Vendor Y – if you use product, system or service X – how are you different than your competitors?
  • Do you feel safer choosing a “Big Name” because it lowers your blame risk? This is REALLY old school 1970’s era thinking – “nobody ever got fired for going with IBM (which was actually propaganda promoted by IBM).” Any current era manager and owner welcomes new thinking and new solutions. In such a diverse market filled with thousands of global players, presenting the big name solution actually demonstrates laziness.
  • Have you rationally thought this out? Will a big name support you better than a smaller vendor? Yes – a big name will give you an 800 number and a voice to give you a ticket # - but how long will it take for them to truly bring that ticket to a resolution worthy of being called a resolution? Will the big name really care about YOU? How does that type of support help your business?
• If you do see and/or experience something that is entirely different than what everyone else is doing – do you know how to present it/take action with higher management?
  • Great – you’ve thought out of the box. You’ve found something entirely different … oops. Now what? You are doing the right thing in that your actions led you to find the right “thing”– but you have no clear path on how to take action? This is what we see the most with the monster corporations – on the ground staff with great intentions just don’t know how to navigate the cross-departmental layers. Unfortunately, in large corporations, this is actually the biggest inhibitor to change – people just don’t know how to take action.

o   In a smaller organization, do you fear speaking with the owner/manager? In EVERY industry, communication is the key to success. You must overcome this fear.

Notice the trend in the 3 questions above – they are all about FEAR – and to be more precise, FEAR of BLAME. So here are my action items to both owners/managers and staff:

If you are an owner/manager:

• Hold your staff accountable for inaction and hold them accountable for choosing the easy path.
• If you are going to assign blame (which is a human nature which almost never adds value) – blame them for inaction and never blame anyone for taking action.

If you are a staff member (of a small to medium sized company):

• Actively communicate with your manager/owner and tell them that you are going to take action and you are going to include your manager/owner in all decision points whenever necessary.

If you are a staff member (of a large company):

• Learn the boundaries of what you are able to bring action on. Most staff in a large corporation cannot actually bring about systemic or procedural change – regardless of their good intentions. Large corporate process is entirely unforgiving.
• Ask about the formal change process with your manager at your next employee review.
• Ask them to outline the presentation path on how you can be given a venue to present your ideas for change?
• Learn the budgeting request process so that you can learn how to request budget for operational improvements?
• Learn the committee approval processes which will need to approve your request for improvement/change?
• Even if unsuccessful in bringing about the change - Learn how you can highlight your achievement in your year-end review and still be perceived as someone who takes action out of the box.