Why businesses need a dreamer's magic and a doer's realism | Beth Viner
Dec 21, 2023
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Beth Viner, a culture strategist, delves into the dynamic interplay between dreamers and doers in the workplace. She emphasizes how blending imaginative thinkers with practical executors can unlock business potential. Viner provides a practical blueprint for fostering collaboration, using insightful analogies and real-world examples, like Marriott, to illustrate how this partnership can drive growth and innovation. By nurturing mutual respect and supporting creative flow, teams can turn ambitious dreams into tangible realities.
Bridging the tension between dreamers and doers is crucial for organizations to continue building, growing, and capturing new opportunities.
Creating a corporate mosh pit involves acknowledging the different perspectives of dreamers and doers and valuing their expertise and commitment.
Deep dives
The Importance of having Dreamers and Doers in Business
The podcast discusses the importance of having both dreamers and doers in business to make big projects successful. Dreamers, or zero to one humans, are individuals who thrive in the fogginess of problems and excel at nonlinear solutions. They are the founders and creative inventors who dream up big possibilities. On the other hand, doers, or one to end humans, are the ones who ensure the long-term success of the company. They are the ones who build companies and provide the glue that keeps everything together. Bridging the tension between dreamers and doers is crucial for organizations to continue building, growing, and capturing new opportunities.
The Value of Buy-In and Aligning Compensation
To bridge the tension between dreamers and doers, it is important to get buy-in and align compensation. One example shared in the podcast is about Lola, a feminine health reproductive company. Initially focused on a single product, they eventually realized the need to crack the retail market. They hired doers from outside who had retail sales experience and tied their compensation to the performance of the entire business. This alignment of incentives helped build relationships, foster cross-business line sharing, and improve internal communication at a rapid pace.
Building a Corporate Mosh Pit and Creating Speed Bumps
Creating a corporate mosh pit involves acknowledging the different perspectives of dreamers and doers and valuing their expertise and commitment. One example mentioned is Marriott, which combines a team of zero to one dreamers with a focus on future innovation and a group of franchisees and frontline staff who provide input and influence the changes being made. Additionally, building speed bumps is important to establish a cadence or process for individuals or teams, ensuring better alignment and mutual understanding. However, it is crucial not to have too many speed bumps that may hinder progress and slow down innovation.
At work, the dreamers often get credit for the big ideas, but they can also sometimes seem untethered to reality to the doers, who are trying to ... get things done. It's when these two types of humans work in harmony that business magic happens, says culture strategist Beth Viner. She lays out a practical blueprint for harnessing the dreamer's out-of-the-box thinking and the doer's practicality, showing why it's the key to building, growing and innovating in any relationship or organization.