Do You Think Inside the Box, Outside the Box, or at the Edge of the Box?

To solve thorny problems, you can’t have either a purely internal or external view

Mural by Wongi "Freak" Wilson. Credit: Bernard Spragg

Efrain entered his office on a bright, sunny morning, a smile on his face. He poured a cup of coffee and took his seat behind his desk. From his vantage point, he could see his staff walking in and settling down to the day’s work.

His executive placement firm had risen from a downswing and was quickly regaining its lost glory and more.

As he sipped his coffee, he reflected on the events of the recent past.

What had started as a simple staffing firm and grown to a high-level executive placement and search firm that commanded respect in the field of professionals had begun a slow drop in its service level and, as a consequence, a slow decline in client confidence. Although he tried to maintain a calm demeanor externally to avoid negatively affecting the morale of his staff, internally his frustration was building. Their placement lead times were getting longer and longer. The company’s overall performance was dropping, and the projections for the future did not seem encouraging. The number of returning clients and new prospects was on the decline. These thoughts kept Efrain awake many a night.

He decided to have an informal meeting with his staff to try to understand the root cause of the company’s decline.

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Comments

Is this really thinking on the edge?

In this parable, it sounds like everything about the system was already in place, and the system was only temporarily changed by the end. The problem was that the system was understaffed, and the solution was for the company to hire more staff.

Where our heroic protagonist, Efrain, pats himself on the back is when he figures out how to hire more staff but at a lower cost than he previously anticipated. The payoff was expected from the belief that, after getting his firm out from behind the 8-ball, the labor needs of the company would be smaller and the temporary staff could be released.

This is textbook “inside-the-box” thinking: “Once we fix this one temporary problem, our system will work correctly.”

I know a company that frequently gets behind in delivery times, output, and schedule adherence; and every year, they send R&D and clerical personnel down to the manufacturing area to do menial tasks and play “catch up.” They even offer bonuses if certain goals are reached. Of course, the goals are never reached, because creating chaos in the workforce is not a mechanism for achieving robust delivery times, output, or schedule adherence. The problem is created by the system, and rather than imagine systemic solutions, they believe that they can throw personnel at the problem, the problem will end, and then the system will begin to function as designed. Bonkers; that company will be fighting fires until they close their doors.

In our parable here, I think what Efrain really discovered was that exit interviewing was a different job than the ones that required his more expert staff. Making it a separate responsibility with its own dedicated staff was the systemic solution.