Creative. Not.

Funny moment on my way into work this morning.

If you read a lot, you'll remember a post when I started at McKinney Church about the vast differences between Fort Worth and Dallas, even though they're only about 20 miles apart. To narrow it down, Fort Worth is full of engineers, so everything works by a process. People here are less concerned about creativity than they are being right. To pursue excellence in a Fort Worthian's mind is to pursue correctness.

Dallas, specifically North Dallas where I moved here from is all about creativity. You walk into Starbucks and see guys running their multi-million dollar dot com business everywhere you go. There, the end is in creativity - if you want to pursue excellence, your instincts are going to be bent towards developing something "neat" that nobody has ever done before.

This morning, as I was driving in I heard a traffic report from Dallas. They were talking about the accidents on the tollway - a road that runs parallel to two major roadways, but costs several dollars each way. I swear it has more accidents and traffic backups than the reagular interstates, but those North Dallas people continue to drive on it. Those super-creative people, who find a new way around anything, regularly pay lots of money to sit in traffic.

There's a point to my story - when it comes to strategy, there are multiple points on the spectrum between Fort Worth and Dallas. But it's likely that no matter where you fall on that spectrum, you've got a blind spot. You can't categorize people too closely, because you never know when they'll surprise you, either positively or negatively.