Many times, especially in business, we are faced with a difficult choice.
Often, these difficult choices leave us trying to decide between one option or the other.
Buy an office building, or lease office space?
Hire a new employee, or outsource to the Philippines?
Develop a new product, or focus on better marketing for the existing product line?
In almost every case, there is more to be gained by refusing the “either/or” decision paradigm… and instead embracing a “both/and” paradigm. For instance…
Instead of either buying an office building, or leasing office space… what if you became the landlord, owning the building, leasing from yourself, and collecting rent from other tenants? That might let you enjoy the best of both the options.
Instead the choice between hiring a new employee in-house or outsourcing to Manilla… what if you did both, and extended the speed, flexibility and working hours of your team… without spending extra money?
Instead of choosing between product development, or marketing existing products in a better way, why not do both? Is there really a reason you're forced to choose between the two options?
Usually, the answer is… there is no reason for such an artificial choice.
Free yourself from the box!