Think Outside the Box – Change the Game

How do you see something differently? What happens if you are looking out of a red window? Everything has a red tint to it. Is is possible that everything out there doesn’t have a red tint to it? Obviously. Contrary to your answer to the above dilemma, I bet all of us have gotten stuck in one particular way of thinking, and thus caused a delay or maybe a failure in our lives that could have been avoided if we could have been a bit more open minded. Below are three examples of people who have done a fantastic job stepping outside the proverbial box of thinking and just basked in the warm sunlight of success. There is always possibility and between these three, they clearly changed the window they were looking out of.

Henry Ford coined the following thought, and he also is responsible for revolutionizing the auto industry.

“Be ready to revise any system, scrap any method, abandon any theory, if the success of the job requires it.” -Henry Ford

In 1898 there were all kinds of people trying to build carriages that could power themselves. Think back to horse drawn carriages, these were the times. Henry Ford had been a part of building the first two models of a these carriages. He then convinced a group of businessmen to back him in a venture that appeared to be a huge risk a the time. This was a huge risk in his life, at least. He wanted to mass produce these horse-less carriages. This business failed and much to his chagrin so did his second. However, it was the next that was the start of the Ford Motor Company that we know today. The rest of the story is in the history books.

I want to call attention to the willingness to push past failures and begin again. He could have stopped at any time and just hung failure over his head, but outside the box there lives hope and Henry Ford nailed it.

I heard of the next gentlemen in a talk by a man named Simon Sinek. Follow him for some out of the box learning. The man in focus is a man by the name of Bob Chapman. Bob runs a business called Barry Wehmiller. In 2008 the recession hit, and because of this his organization, which was a production factory lost 30% of its orders. This equated to a 10 million dollar loss virtually overnight. Due to this unfortunate decline, the company could not support its labor pool, and they discussed layoffs. Everyone but Bob agreed with this route. Bob insisted that they not lay anyone off.

Well, then what would the plan be? There were not enough dollars to meet the wages due. Bob insisted that there was a better way. He said that he valued heart counts and not head counts. He came up with this plan. The company gave each employee four weeks of unpaid vacation time. They were able to take it whenever they wanted. Bob told the workforce that it was better that everyone suffer a little than any one suffer a lot. Employees began to trade a week here if they needed more time off, for another employees week there, who needed a little more pay. What happened was a huge upswing in morale, and the company actually saved $20 million dollars, twice that of which they lost overnight just months before. Wow! In a seemingly doomsday scenario, Bob saw the light and he didn’t do this by thinking small.

The last of the three is the motorcycle guy. I was driving home from the gym today and I saw something I wasn’t sure about in my rear view mirror, so I pulled the annoying-slow-down-guy-in-the-middle-of-traffic move. What pulled up next to me brought nothing but a smile to my face. This guy was riding a motorcycle in his wheelchair. Yes, you read that right. I am not sure the story behind this, nor do I think that I ever will, but I can imagine the route to get here was quite an experience. Clearly, this man had an obstacle in his way, and against all the grain made it happen. He has a custom rig that allows him to ride this motorcycle from the sidecar, that safely contains his wheelchair. He cruised past me as you can see in the video, free as the breeze.

The ironic part of this happening was that it piggybacked a conversation I had with a friend about some failures that come up in business. We all have things that don’t go the way we want them to. Clearly, this man was driving past me today to show me a much grander scheme. There is a way to do things outside of the conventional way. I believe the goal is to think outside the box to allow your mind not to be limited to things that have been done. There is all the possibility out there. Sometimes you may just have to put yourself outside the box to see them. Sometimes life puts you outside the box. Wherever you are in relation to this proverbial box, know that people do things all kinds of different ways and have success.

There are endless examples out there of people doing things like this. I just happen to believe its nice to hear about them. It pushes us all in that direction. Next time you are planning something or trying to solve a problem, try to think about it in a different way. It may just make for a great story.

 

Danny Lesslie

@dannylesslie