Draw No Boxes

In business, a company will hire people to perform a variety of tasks.  These tasks are necessary to reach the goal of the whole – “the big picture.”  When asked what the individual does, they often focus on the task or job title.  When asked, “What do you do?” the individual will say, “I am a DBA” or “I am a product manager for coupon products.”  The individual does not see themselves delivering the end product; for example, “moving freight from sender to receiver,” “getting the largest possible tax refund for our clients,” or sometimes even “connecting buyers and sellers.”

I can hear it now, “he is a DBA,” or better still, “I am just a DBA.” 

Well, let’s say you work for an advertising company. You work on the database that stores the ads and sends them to Internet search sites.  The search sites don’t read your database in real-time; rather, the ads are extracted by another team and sent to Google, Yahoo, or MSN.  If the database is down, the ads don’t get sent; the buyers and sellers are not connected. Sounds pretty important to me.  You are not just a DBA; you connect buyers and sellers!

Do you have a direct line of sight to how you fit into your “big picture?”   Don’t minimize your value, be proud of it.  Personalize your big picture but start saying, “I connect buyers and sellers by managing the databases used to put ads of advertisers (sellers) online for the consumers (buyers) to find them.”  Take yourself out of the equation, “Without what I do, the buyers would not see the sellers’ ad and thus never get connected.”   Like I said before, sounds pretty important to me!

Do it now; personalize your “big picture.”

Until next time!

Dr. Dave

Several years ago, I attended a “Leadership Development” course. The course began with the instructor telling the class that we need more people to “think outside the box.” Frustrated, I disagreed and said, “I needed fewer people drawing boxes around me and forcing me to think outside of them.” Seems too simple – eh? Before you say, “you have to have boxes,” you need to understand what I mean.

Often, people doubt it is possible to have “no boxes” when you think. It is possible if you consider that everyone in the company has a single job to do. If you are a home builder, you build homes. Whether you are in the accounting department, a framer, or a marketer — you build homes. All I ask is you don’t limit yourself to your domain but consider how to be better if there were no limitations. Limitations of money, people, processes, or expertise may cause an organization to choose a specific option. The point to my comment — don’t just limit your options based on boxes you draw around yourself.

This incident spawned the idea for this blog. It took me several years, but I felt the need to share my thoughts. I hope they make sense and you glean something usable from them.

Until next time!

Dr. Dave