Episode 125: Build Your Own Box

What if the reason your team is stuck is not too little freedom, but too much? Drawing on David Epstein’s Inside the Box, Maya and Marcus show why total freedom is the enemy of creativity and constraint is its companion — from Dr. Seuss’s fifty words to Murakami’s limited English — and why two levels up, your job is designing the box: one goal, one deadline, one scope. Four steps close it out: name the box, shrink one thing, set the box before the work starts, and audit your own freedom. This show is written and produced by Joe Dutkiewicz of Crayon Leadership. Joe equips mid-senior leaders to think and act two levels up, so they’re recognizable to top leaders and ready for the promotion before it opens. Find Joe on LinkedIn, X, YouTube, Facebook, and at the Crayon Leadership website. Maya and Marcus are AI voices, created with text-to-speech.