Bulldozer00's Blog

Look around you. How many people in your organization are Reviewers And aPprovers  (RAPpers)? How many people are Creators And Builders (CABbies)? Which types of members are more valued by your organization?

Since managers (especially the higher up you go in the hierarchy) are most likely to be RAPpers, the odds are high that rappers are perceived to be more valuable than cabbies in your organization. Typically, the bigger the org, the more valued the rappers.

Rappers rarely have good ideas. If a rapper comes up with the occasional good idea, they usually keep it to themselves, especially if it’s too different from the norm. The risk is too high for rejection and rappers can’t have that. Rappers are too concerned about looking infallible. They have an image to uphold.

Cabbies, on the other hand, come up with all kinds of ideas, both good and bad. They are less inhibited by the need to look infallible. However, in a rapper dominated environment, most cabbies have a tough time externalizing their ideas for fear of rejection too. After all, they’re human.

When a business is created from scratch, most, if not all, the founding members are both rappers and cabbies. Because good ideas are plentiful and flow freely, the business thrives and grows for a while. However, over time, the usual consequence of growth is that more and more members transform into rappers. The conventional MBA thinking is that rappers are needed to weed out bad ideas and control growth. Fewer ideas get generated and the business starts stagnating.  In the extreme, the rappers grow to vastly outnumber the cabbies and voila, a stifling and static bureaucracy is created.

The sad thing is that every human being who walks the face of the earth is born with the innate ability to become a cabbie. However, since western societies value rappers over cabbies, most people ignore and suppress their cabbie talent. To the detriment of all, they unconsciously strive to become rappers.