This might sound like an odd question, but hear me out. I have been working in and on behalf of business owners and their teams for many years now and there are two personality types that I see people fall into that, when working together, bring the most amazing results. I’m looking out for the ‘expanders’ and the ‘containers’. Are you lucky enough to have this balance in your team?

 

The Expander is the one with the big ideas – the visionary if you like. The Expander tends to live in the future, often with visions of what is possible running through their mind. They have a non-stop stream of ideas and they are highly ambitious. This person is often the entrepreneur/CEO of the company.

 

The Container is the person who plugs into the vision and brings the “how” to the table. The Container lives in the now and brings a strong understanding of what it will require to bring the ideas or vision that the Expander has, to life.

 

This concept was shared by Barbara Corcoran while speaking at an event a few years ago. She was sharing how her role as an ‘Expander’ was balanced out by a key member of her team working as a ‘Container’. All of her big ideas would be run through the filter of this woman on her team, who would guide decisions around what they would (and wouldn’t) move forward on. Even though Barbara is the face of her companies, she attributed much of her success to how the two of them worked together.

 

For a business to truly thrive the Expander and the Container need to work in harmony to create a balance in your team. Here’s how:

 

• The Expander can come up with all the brilliant ideas in the world, but if they don’t have someone to help prioritize, plan and make it happen then these ideas never come to life. Sometimes, having too many ideas can actually harm your business. It’s true!
• Likewise, if someone is a Container, they might be really awesome at getting stuff done – but if they don’t have any kind of great vision to work towards then their efforts may go to waste.

Imagine you need a drink of water… you need two things: 1) The water and 2) the glass to put it in. If you have water (ideas) but no glass (container) then the water just spills everywhere, making it impossible to drink. Likewise, if you have a glass but no water you are left thirsty.

 

Here’s an example of how Expander/Container relationship can work:

 

The entrepreneur (Expander) wakes up one day with a brilliant idea for a new offer. They hop on a call with their DOO (Container) and say “Guess what? I just had this awesome idea… I want to do X and I’m thinking we launch it next month; this is going to rock the world!”

 

Their Operations Consultant replies, “That’s great, I love that idea and I’m also aware of how much we have going on right now. We are already working on launching Y for next month, so how does this fit into our current plan? Do we need to reprioritise anything?”

 

[Side note: Can you see how the Container is bringing a reality check in here, while at the same time still really honouring how excited the business owner is – a good Container doesn’t deflate the Expander’s passion.]

 

The entrepreneur says “Yes, you are right… I forgot we already had Y planned for next month. So when can we fit this next offer in?”

 

To which the Container replies, “Well I know it would take 2-3 months for us to really prepare and launch this correctly. How about I take a look at our overall plan and see where this fits in best and I can get back to you when we chat again on Monday.”

 

Isn’t that cool? When this relationship is in place you get this amazing balance in your team between passion & reality – both of which are essential in business.

 

A CBS Insights poll revealed than over 14% of businesses failed in 2021 because they didn’t have the right team in place.. So, the bottom line is – we need each other for all of this to work. When we honour the value of what we each bring to the table – and work together – that’s where we find the gold.

 

So I’d love to know from you, who is the expander and who is the container in your team? Maybe you’re the expander and you’re in desperate need of a container?

 

If it’s time to get balance in your team, leave me a comment below or book a no-fuss coffee chat with me here.