Conventional Management vs. Out-of-the-box Style

You hear more and more reference these days to management syles. The Japanese made headlines back in the early 90's with their revolutionary management philosophy that was paying great dividends in the automotive industry as they started to pull away in production output,wage and morale ratios when compared to The Great American Automotive Machine. As corporate downsizing was the buzzword,and unfortunate reality of the American economy toward the mid-90's,less conservatism seemed to abound in the office skyscrapers of this great land as you saw casual Fridays and company outings becoming more of a mainstay than an odd occurrence. Today we run into this catchphrase "think outside the box" frequently. Many may ask ,"what exactly does this mean?"It can mean a lot of different things especially if we take a close look at what type of business and get a real understanding of the nature of the beast. We need to look at the usual modus operandi of that particular business on a day-to-day basis,stereotypical personality of the employee within,the niche of that certain industry for which this company services or produces .

I respect the "boss" who gathers his/her "employees" around the campfire for a brainstorming pow-wow in his/her quest to find solutions to problems,seek creative ways to boost production or sales or purely to innovate some new,fresh implementations to keep things exciting within the workplace. This alone is incredible in that it exponentializes the number of ideas that are born from a bull session when you have so many more heads mulling over and exchanging mental "lightning rods". It also demonstrates that this particular office captain or CEO is not a control freak afraid of being one-upped by an underling but more open to empowering his/her people knowing full well the heights that the business can be taken to as a direct result of the very encouragement of such an open forum.

It strikes me that radical ,revolutionary and off-the-wall are very acceptable these days and perhaps as we turned the curve into the New Millenium. These are far from conservative times that we are in the midst. A great example is to simply look at the content of today's sitcoms and all forms of media commercials to confirm. Compared to the 80's let alone 60's finds racy,sexy,brash and bold as the norm in today's advertising world. You don't even have to turn to special made-for-cable content to hear things and see things that would have made our elders cringe or cover their ears and eyes only two decades ago. Yet today it's a pretty widely accepted status quo with virtually all adult age groups and then someEven in the academic world there has been a big transition in the last 5-10 years. For eons you had students being mentored in top notch Ivy league schools and large universities/colleges throughout the land in business management and MBA programs by professors who had never run a business let alone made a six figure income. But more and more,there are schools overhauling their curriculums to move with the times focussing attention on the franchise,work-from-home and entrepreneurial sectors; and they are featuring lecturers, who have done it and are doing it as they speak, hands-on running their own enterprises!The world of sports has been a major venue for out-of-the-box thinking for some time now. As an ever increasing number of sports organizations are ramping up their doping and urine test standards,steroids are not enjoying the "edge" that was the main reason proponents took to them in the first place. Just watching the Barry Bonds fiasco unfold and seeing his records so besmirched is a bizarre first in sports. On the positive side we are witnessing some fields of specialty that are having a major influence of the success of many athletes. Strength training and conditioning of unparalleled proportions is on the rise with instructors having access to information-the likes of previously unseen.

I actually met a gentleman back in 1996 in Miami, on the shuttle taking us into the main gates of the annual Key Biscayne tennis classic, that was featuring the two Williams sisters both on the rise and ranked in the top 15. I started talking to him and he began to explain this wild (very new science at the time) called Cranial Integration Therapy. As he explained it ,there were body language moves that would determine the success of a point before it was even played,merely by a look,shoulder shrug ,faraway glance at a critical juncture seconds before a serve or volley. He likened it to a breakdown in concentration at the wrong possible second and I looked for it during their matches (he was hired by Mr. Williams in tutoring his daughters in this new science) and it blew me away. He even performed some "tricks" for me on the bus that made a real,solid believer out of me. Yet, he was banging his head on the wall in communicating this revolutionary study to tennis talking heads at that same time due to the ignorance on the part of a vast many about this science and what it brought to the table.

The times are moving ever faster it seems as we move progressively forward. So we must do our best to move with them or we might find ourselves choking on the exhaust of the chariots of revolution.