A Creative Leader's Approach to Boundaries

How firm are your boundaries? Are you willing to try new things, even if they are so new that they seem frightening?

When I worked at GE there was a lot of talk about creating more boundarylessness. Yes, they made up the word. The broke a semantic boundary in service to their notion.

It's not that there are no boundaries. We need those. It's just that our boundaries tend to get fixed into configurations that constrain us unnecessarily. We need to break those boundaries, or simply pass thru them without breaking them. They become (again, as we referred to them at GE) as permeable boundaries.

Nature knows all about this. Got a fence? Nature will find a way around it or over it or thru it. Build a wall? Nature will find a way to slowly knock it down. Cities and states? Nature doesn't care. If a storm is headed your way, those artificial boundaries that you think are so sacrosanct will not protect you.

Be like nature. Test your boundaries. Cross those borderlines sometimes. Innovate. The creative leader sees boundaries as possibilities, not barriers.

How about you?

-- Doug Smith

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