Chapter 84. Avoid Straitjacket Thinking

When you’ve got your head down and things are flying at you from all directions, it is easy to forget that you are supposed to be an innovative and a creative, cutting-edge sort of manager. We all do it. We get so close to the work under our noses we lose sight of the fact that we can invent, inspire, lead, motivate—and say “Yes.” The team comes to you with a new idea and you are so weary from fighting the bureaucracy, the system, the weather, and the commuting that you just say, “No,” no matter what it is they are suggesting. It’s often a “No” with a subtext of “And leave me alone, I’m too busy/ stressed/irritable to think about this now.” Is that you? Bet it is sometimes. It’s all of us.

So, we need to throw the straitjacket off. We need to lift our heads. We need to consider the options and think “Why not?” and “What would happen if we did this?” We need to stop being constrained by pressure and by work.

An easy way out of the straitjacket is to consider how you would view your job, your department, your team if you were a stranger coming in from the outside, coming in to do your job for the first time. What would you change? What would you leave alone? Think of what you’re doing from the point of view of your customers—what makes sense? What doesn’t?

It is easy to get so bogged down in minutiae that we fail to stand back and look at things with fresh eyes every day. But if we are to be simply the best sort of manager ever to roam the Earth, we must stay fresh or go the way of the dinosaurs. Staying fresh means being open to new ideas, new suggestions, new concepts, and new directions.