Question of the Day

Where is that old Yankee, Can Do spirit? The idea that you do whatever it takes to reach your goal, solve the problem, be a success? You certainly hear a lot about it in business meeting and success seminars, but where is it really? 

In my career, I have worked at a lot of companies. Once upon a time, that was a sign that I was some kind of flake. But in Silicon Valley, knowing when to pick up and move on is the key to staying fully employed for thirty years. There is one thing that all the companies I have worked for have in common: They no longer exist, at least not under the same name. 

What I have seen is that “Whatever it takes,” really means “Whatever it takes, within our comfort zone.” Sometimes it’s called “playing to your strengths,” but all too often justifies tackling all problems and challenges in the same old way, and with the same tools, that you’ve always used. 

“Think out of the box” has become such a cliche that we’ve forgotten what it actually means. I wonder if most of us ever really understood what it means, I know I didn’t. That’s because there’s no “box” out there to bang your head against, no barrier of wood or stone, built by someone else, that keeps you from where you want to be. Instead, the “box” consists of skills and feelings. Skills you don’t have and feelings you don’t want to feel.

There is a story about how to train fleas for a flea circus: You put them in a box with a transparent lid. At first, they will constantly jump and hit the lid, but after a while, they learn to not jump so high and stop hitting the lid. The amazing part is, you can then remove the lid and they still won’t jump high enough to get out of the box. That is the modern tech worker and executive. We’ve all been trained for so long to not fail, to not look bad, make a mistake or be embarrassed, that we’ve forgotten that we can jump higher. In fact, we’ve been trained so well that we are only vaguely aware that there is a box. So, the question of the day is: How do you “think outside the box,” when the “box” is all you know?