Skillsoft

1475

M: Male Speaker

M: I am often asked by companies, “Nigel, can you help our managers and leaders to think outside the box?” And when I ask them, “What box do you mean?” They say, “Oh, you know what I mean!” Now you know what I mean is English for I have no idea how to articulate that because you are the box. You’re so close to it that other perceptions, new ways of doing business, innovative technologies are almost certainly invisible to you. There is one way that stops you from thinking outside the box or as I am going to call it actually changing the box if you want to be truly innovative. And it’s what I describe as yes/but thinking. You’re faced with a new idea, the dinosaur part of our brain seems to want to assassinate that idea by saying, “Yes, but—“ Or what are the other phrases we use to yes/but, a new innovative suggestion? Well, try “with respect”. Or if you hate the idea, “With greatest respect”. Or “I hear what you say, but”. “I see your point, but.” What do these actually mean? I hear what you say? I’m not listening. I see your point. Mine is better. With respect. Get lost. Yes, but. No.

Now I am not trying to destroy your whole vocabulary. But what I am saying is that new ideas are very easily yes/butted. And to be more open minded, to change the box, the expectation of your industry, your organization, your customers, what you need to be able to do is develop the reflex of why not or what if.

Now here are some famous yes/buts from business history, one of my all time favorites, is the head of the British Post Office, a Mr. Preiss [ph] , in the 1890s, yes/butting the innovation which we now know as the telephone. He said, and this is in the parliamentary __ records, for geographical reasons the Americans require the telephone. We, in England, do not. We have plenty of messenger boys. Now imagine my delight presenting that quote to the senior management of a British telecoms company a few years ago and they said, “Yeah, well, I am afraid some of that yes/but still seems to exist in our culture.”

So another example is Ken Olson of DEC Digital Equipment, great innovator in his time. But in 1979 he gave us one of the most famous yes/buts in business history. He said, “Yes, but who on earth would want a computer at home?” Well, actually only about 800 million people it seems, Ken. And so perhaps not surprising to see DEC eventually swallowed up by a PC manufacturer, eventually disappeared. Even his nerdship himself, Bill Gates III, in the early mid-‘90s, yes/butted the economic potential of the internet. But to his credit did a great u-turn and got Microsoft’s resources focused on realizing that this seriously was a why, not, what if, and was about to happen and if they didn’t get on board they would be history.

But think about this very person. I am sure that you never yes/but ideas from a colleague, from your boss, from an employee, from your husband, wife, or children. Do something for 24 hours. But for no longer. We would probably go crazy. County how many times you think or say a yes/but to a new suggestion that you hear from television, that you read in the papers, that you hear from somebody else. Don’t do it for any longer, you’ll go crazy. But just to attune yourself to the fact that all of us think of ourselves as open-minded, but the only people who are really open-minded are the village idiot or the dead. We are all processing, analyzing and if we are negative, yes/butting new ideas and therefore missing the opportunity to change the box of our own life, our own organization, our own business.

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