I have a confession to make. I see the world differently than most people. I’ve always looked at the world differently. I was never into baseball or other team sports. When I would play, I created elaborate worlds. I built tree houses, forts and treasure maps. I dammed the brook behind my house for fishing and ice skating. (My dam building skills really needed some heavy equipment) And for the past 40 plus years, I have created elaborate maps of the relationships of archaeological sites around the world. I wish I had Google Earth when I was 11.
When I was in college, we had an assignment where we had to create a system within the 12 by 12 space that had a marble in it. The object was to keep the marble inside the box for as long as possible. For most people, their marble took two to three minutes to move through the system. Mine took eight hours. My solution wasn’t exactly popular because while I met all of the criteria of the exercise, it wasn’t what the teacher intended. So he didn’t really like that. My box contained ice cubes. Technically the marble was always moving as the ice melted and it eventually came out the side. This is just a simple version of how I look at things.
The Good and Bad
Sometimes it served has me, sometimes it hasn’t. When I was in the military, we were asked to plan for a new system. It required a specialized computer program to do the calculations to use it correctly. Actually it was a whole computer because these were the days before computers did more than one thing. There were only a couple systems in the world and since we didn’t have one, I figured out a way to do it manually. I built what was laughingly called the LPT, Longley’s Plastic Thing. I had presented it to a fairly high level group of people and kind of got laughed at for it.
At the end of the day, mine was the only organization that was actually able to come up with my requirements for the new system. And when the new system went online, the computer that they use to calibrate it didn’t work. So guess who they called to calibrate a very expensive piece of equipment with a piece of plastic? I never got any accolades and no one thanked me because that was not the approved way to do things, but again, it worked. And that’s just kind of how I looked at the world.
It Might Change Everything
Well, none of my ideas have changed the world per se. I do think people that see the world differently, like myself are important to projects and companies in general. For CEOs that might otherwise dismiss us, you’re doing so at your own peril. Not saying that I’m right and you’re wrong, but there are going to be times when somebody in your organization or outside does something that’s radically different than what’s expected and you need to pay attention to it. All you have to do is look at the history of things like the telephone and how Apple took that over. They were not from within the industry. Kodak for instance developed the digital camera. But never followed through with it because film was their baby. The Swiss also didn’t embrace digital watches and we know how that played out.
If you run a business, you need to pay attention to the stupid, crazy, insane ideas that you might see around the margins of your business. These come from people who see the world differently. Be sure to evaluate these ideas carefully. It may be your future.
