Inside the Box...Outside the Box
by Dick Barnes, Principal, The Freeland Group

You have both types within your organization.
Now how do you get them to work together?

The client was a construction company; in operation nearly forty years.  The founder/CEO was nearing retirement and had prepared in detail for that day.  The five trusted veterans on his executive board were formally educated in business administration and construction management.  These gentlemen were each to “inherit” a percentage of the company.  The company, in return, would pay a pre-arranged retirement annuity to the founder and his spouse.

This innovative solution to the age-old problem of small business continuity was one indication that the founder was a person whom we could say “thinks outside the box.” He was an innovator, a conceptualizer who looked beyond the obvious and came up with creative solutions.

Nonetheless, there was a problem.  For two years the firm had been losing money on nearly every job.  There would soon be no company to inherit nor to support him in his retirement.  It took a few days of research on my part to understand how this had come about.

The five subordinates were classic “inside the box” thinkers, a positive attribute as they were responsible for the highly detailed work of operating a large construction enterprise.  They were analytical and highly detail oriented.  Estimating, scheduling, and job costing were handled in a professional manner.  The numbers, however, were inevitably on the low side.

My conclusion:  the boss had originally done all the numbers off the top of his head.  He prided himself on his ability to intuitively feel when an estimate was right.  The firm’s present day jobs made his past experience irrelevant, but he retained his strong opinions.  Even though his board members knew his numbers were incorrect, not one could bring himself to rock the boat.  Instead, each fudged on his figures, hoping that things would turn out right or that subcontractors could be blamed.

This was a classic, and subtle, example of what can occur when your “outside the box” and “inside the box” types are not tuned in to one another.  This company’s leaders were not communicating on that level where real understanding takes place.

A model of how the two types should balance one another may be found in the relationship between an entrepreneur and his banker.  The entrepreneur is the dreamer. Society needs the dreamer as he is the one that comes up with the products that drive our economy and our way of life.  Society also needs the banker. To achieve their separate, but compatible, goals, the dreamer must convince the banker to help him prepare for the loan committee.  The banker must convince the dreamer to think, plan ahead, and to do the necessary groundwork that will assure success.

In the entrepreneur/financier relationship the roles are obvious and understood by all.  What about the relationships between the people in your organization? 

People are not always easy to categorize.  We all have a touch of the creative genius just as we all feel the need to introduce some order into our lives.  Still, most of us tend to fall into one camp or another.  The wise manager figures out who is who early in the game; beforehand if doing the hiring.  That is the point when the wrong people often get placed in the wrong position for the wrong reason. 

Managers oft times hire people they feel are a lot like themselves.  This rarely precedes astounding success as the strength of any organization is in the diversity of talent the leader can bring to the table.  The founder of our construction firm, with his carefully chosen five member management team, had not made this mistake.  He made quite another one.  He failed to encourage them to agree to disagree, thereby invalidating their most important analytical skills.  He efficiently neutralized their greatest assets as “inside the box” thinkers.

If a manager is wise enough to build a pool of talent, he should also be wise enough to swim in the whole pool, not just in the shallow end.

Let’s look at another case; a small manufacturing firm with a positive partnership between two very diverse types.  The company’s founder was a recent immigrant, a gentleman with little formal education but with undeniable natural talent.  He was young and tremendously enthusiastic.  He also worked weird hours, sometimes failed to wear shoes or socks to work, occasionally left his wallet in public places, and regularly forgot which day of the week it was.  Appointments, deadlines, contracts, inventory, and all other matters of business were ignored completely.

Fortunately, he had been sponsored by a woman who was a retired business executive.  He came to her for help with his dream of starting a company.   She was able to perceive the value of his idea, to put together a business plan and obtain capital, and to build an organization that took full advantage of both their talents.  He was allowed to be himself; the consummate “outside the box” innovator.  She recognized the type and impressed order upon the situation by using her “inside the box” organizational skills.  Most importantly she understood that it would be a mistake to rein in her young protégé’s enthusiasm.  He, in turn, understood there could be no company without her.

She behaved as the stern, but understanding, maternal figure and he treated her with the appropriate combination of respect and boyish mischief.  In microcosm, they interfaced much as a larger organization’s research and development department might with upper management.  These two people succeeded because they understood their separate roles.  I have witnessed other organizations where such partnerships had developed over time and worked quite well.  I have seen many more situations where they did not.

It is the role of management to set the tone for cooperative working relationships.  A leader must honestly explore his own strengths and weaknesses and revel in the diversity of strengths displayed by his people.  The wise leader allows people to bring their talents to their jobs.  He does not put them into positions where they will fail, but places them where they will shine.

At the same time he helps each participant to understand their roles.  It does not matter whether they are creative artists or disciplined production line engineers; the company cannot win without the balances and cross-checks diverse people bring to the game.

The players on a football team understand their positions and take pride in their separate abilities.  No coach in his right mind would put his quarterback in the game as an offensive guard nor his center in as a defensive safety.  When a manager and his people understand and respect each other’s roles as well as football players do theirs, the communications in the organization improve automatically. 

In our first example, the construction company, the founder had to learn to encourage his executives to unearth his mistakes.  It was, after all, an important aspect of their jobs.  He learned to accept the fact that their skills might be greater than his.  He was free, once more, to begin planning his retirement.

Together they discovered that the key is to understand and appreciate the role each person is meant to play; not to agree or disagree with the dreamer, but to rein him in occasionally, to keep his dream focused, and to apply differing skills in a sound manner to the problem at hand.  This is the true value of diversity in the work force; not just having it, but using it. 

In other words; make certain all your cylinders are firing before you get into the race.  Whether you do or you don’t,  you can bet your competition will.