Inside or Outside the Box?

Stories from American sports are usually not the best tool for discussing leadership concepts in Asia. In this case, though, last Sunday’s Super Bowl offers an example that is too good to pass up. As you think about how you want your employees to make decisions, and how innovative you want them to be, consider the ending of last weekend’s big game.

With about 25 seconds to go, the Seattle Seahawks were in the perfect position to score the game-winning touchdown. Momentum was on their side, following an unbelievable play only moments before, and they had a strong player nicknamed “Beast Mode” who had a really good shot at running the ball into the end zone. Surprising everyone, though, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll chose to have his quarterback throw a pass instead, a pass that was intercepted by the New England Patriots, allowing them to win the championship.

Coach Carroll is being criticized for making “the worst call in Super Bowl history.” Is that fair? His decision demonstrates the difficult choice between trying ideas that are “outside the box” versus playing to your strengths “inside the box.”

Everyone expected the Seahawks to hand the ball to Beast Mode and let him run it in. EVERYONE. The fans expected it. The television announcers expected it. And, most importantly, the other team expected it. The Patriots put 8 of their 11 players in position to block the running play. At the same time, the player who would be covering the pass receiver had made no interceptions all year, so he was not seen as much of a threat. Coach Carroll decided to take advantage of the Patriots’ focus on the conventional choice and try something unconventional instead. Based on his knowledge of the Patriots’ abilities, there was only a small probability that the pass would be intercepted, but of course any time the probability is greater than 0, that means something can happen, and in this case, it did.

However, in making this choice, he reacted to the other team instead of keeping the initiative. This is probably the fairest criticism that is being made of Coach Carroll in the media. The Seahawks had seized the initiative going toward the goal line. Then, they made a choice based not on their strengths, but on the decisions of the other team. By going “outside the box” in this case they were no longer playing based on their strengths, but instead were playing based on the other team’s perceived strengths and weaknesses. The Seahawks had a strong running game beyond Beast Mode and could have handed the ball to another runner to take advantage of that strength in a different way from what the Patriots were expecting, but instead they shifted to something completely different at a critical moment.

One lesson here might be that you should be ready to use your strengths in different ways and make your competition react to you, rather than playing by your own style but then reacting to your competition in a completely new way at the most critical decision point. As much as we say we want employees to “think outside the box,” perhaps a better approach is to create a lot of options within that box, focusing our attention on the things we know we can do well and then trying to do them in different ways that surprise our competitors and force them to react to us. Instead of always saying “think outside the box,” maybe just create a bigger box.

Going outside the box based on a particular situation, as Coach Carroll did, may create new opportunities, but the risks of that decision may also be more than we are willing to bear. If none of the options within the box give you a good chance of achieving your objectives then perhaps it is time to try something completely original, but the more options you have created for meeting your goals, the better chance you will have to use your strengths to be successful. There is no shame in staying inside the box if that gives you the best chance of success.

If you can create new opportunities based on your existing capabilities, that may be better than trying something completely new. Help your employees find the right balance so they can be the heroes of your own game.