Companies and processes. One doesn’t go without the other. Without processes it means you don’t know when the product you ordered will be made, ready to be shipped and delivered to your home. The bigger the companies get the more processes are being put in place. People move from meeting room to meeting room, discussing the processes and the processes behind the processes. It seems all very logic if that’s what you do every day, but it does mean that people have to think less and less for themselves.
And then you get to an interesting other phenomenon. The organisation tests companies do. Let’s take DISC, a popular personality test, where people are being put in four boxes. Blue, Red, Yellow and Green. It helps to make teams and departments work better together. Ideally you have all four colours represented in a team. The processes must have been made by the blue people, because they like rules and procedures. If you look at creative companies you will find plenty of yellow and red people and less blue and green, and they probably have never heard of these tests they just want to produce the best work possible and that mostly happens outside any box. That’s why it’s always a challenge to let the blue corporates work with the yellow creative agencies.
One of the challenges the blue corporates face is adding more yellow. You can imagine that the yellow people don’t feel at home at blue companies but they are crucial for innovation, for change, for imagination and for rocking the boat. It takes guts for these blue companies to create a habitat where these people feel at home and can do what they are good at without being hold back by processes all the time. You do find companies who have found a balance. A balance between creativity and scrumsessions. Look at the Ubers, Googles and Apples of this world. They have a high level of yellow in their business.
So, try adding a touch of yellow and start painting. And see what your canvas will look like.