I’m sick of watching people put round pegs into round holes and then patting themselves on the back for ‘thinking out of the box!’ Doing what you are expected to do… they way it’s always been done… isn’t ‘thinking out of the box’ it actually is, in fact, ‘the box!’
I met up with a group a CEO’s that ‘believe’ that they ‘think out of the box’. Thinking out of the box isn’t a belief, it’s an action. When amazing ideas get crushed by a homogeneous group of people that have ‘tried something like that before…’ I call that corporate Whack- A-Mole. My definition of corporate Whack-A-Mole is when someone actually starts to stick their head out of a box and others immediately crush their idea (whack them on the head), to get them back in the box… just like in the carnival game.
Granted, not every idea is brilliant, but mediocrity sucks! I’d rather crash and burn than be average ANY DAY! Many people put down your ideas because of their fears of your success. It could be because they actually tried something similar and it didn’t work for them, but it’s more likely that they just don’t want it to work for you. Maybe they were too afraid of trying something new and they don’t want you to either. It could be they just don’t want you to succeed. People put down others’ ideas for a multitude of reasons beyond the possibility of failure. Usually it’s some sort of manifestation of their own fears.
The real question is when people are playing corporate Whack-A-Mole with your life, whose life are they really afraid of leaving the box? Of course, most people won’t even stick their head out of the box in the first place.
Eric,
Great article…