Either/Or and the Power of AND!

One thing that always surprises me is how often I hear either/or in both my professional and personal life.  I always find it strange that companies and people are so eager to look at things in such a “closed” way.  We can either be low price, high volume or high price, high margin.  Should I be a “jack of all trades” or a specialist?  I can either be a good employee or a good family person.  My favourite is the old cliché within the consulting world “Good, Fast, Cheap….Pick Two”.

Throughout my career, both within the organizations that I have worked for and within my clients’ organizations, I have seen these either/or compromises taking place all the time.  As a service becomes commoditized, people labour over the decision to keep providing a service or product that has shrinking margins.  At the same time, can they justify investments in developing a more specialized service that commands higher margins?  

By looking at things from an either/or perspective we seem to limit ourselves to the “beaten path”.  Why can’t we be more than one thing at a time?  Isn’t that the strength of “AND”.  Why can’t an organization profitably compete on low price, high volume work AND also have other specialized “boutique” capabilities or high-end products that command higher fees and margins? 

Within my own team, we have focused our energies on developing what I consider to be world-class processes and procedures that allow us to compete on ultra-competitive large scale public tenders for what many groups and organizations consider a loss leader service.  However, by combining our tools and processes with a strong training program we have been able to provide our clients with a high quality service, with short turn-around time and at a very competitive (for our clients) and profitable (for us) price.  At the same time, we use those same processes and tools, which are altered somewhat for the more specialized service, to allow us to be even more profitable on higher fee work.  As we continue to evolve the services that we offer on our team, our constant focus is on developing the processes and tools that will allows us to provide both commoditized AND specialized services at the same time.  Our growth prospects would be a lot different if we chose one path or the other.

The Opposable Mind by Roger Martin focuses on how great leaders can hold two opposing viewpoints in their minds, and develop a better third alternative.  I think that this is exactly the kind of thinking that we need to employ to get over the either/or way of thinking.  I would highly recommend that anyone in a leadership position read Martin’s book.  It provides tremendous examples of how AND thinking has helped shape some of the greatest companies in the world today. 

Next time you find yourself at a crossroads in your life or career, rather than simply picking the path to the left, or the path to the right, why not stop and think in there isn’t another path that can lead you to a better destination?  Let me know how you have found a better AND result for you or your team!

Thanks for reading.  Please connect with me on Linked-In (be sure the mention the blog) and follow me on Twitter (@billroth13).

Bill Roth
“The Success Junkie”