Once while doing a student project where we were tasked to write our strategic recommendations for a Caribbean cruise company, I was paired with a student who said, “You can write the actual paper, Deborah.  I am a thinker, not a doer.”

Now, to be fair, if there ever was a guy meant to be a “thinker,” it was probably this student.  He always had prepared, well-thought out comments, he was knowledgeable about many more subjects than I, and he had the voice of a practiced public speaker.  When he talked, you listened.

But this time, I wasn’t buying.

The thing is, smaller projects (like our duo-driven paper) generally don’t have the luxury of specializing in “doing” and “thinking.”  You have to come up with a plan and get things done with very few team members, and everyone has to pull their weight.  This is the very definition of entrepreneurship, where the manager is also the coder is also the marketer is also the receptionist.  A few people have to do multiple tasks (yes, even ones they are not comfortable with) to get things done.

You might argue that on large scale projects, there are more specialized “thinkers” and “doers.”  While I admit this to be true, I also believe that even specialists have to know a little about the “other” in order to be effective.  A project manager in charge of constructing a building, but has no idea how a building is made, for example, is pretty rare.  He has to have knowledge of the things being done in order to make it work.  And the “doers” can often improve the project by “thinking” and add to the quality of the final project, if they are allowed to do so.

So I challenge all the doers and thinkers out there, to consider the other side.  Doers…have you thought lately about what you do and how to make it better?  And thinkers…when’s the last time you shrugged off your thinking caps and did something?

-Deborah Fike

P.S.  My “thinking” classmate did end up writing part of the paper.  He forgot that as a student, I was supposed to be a “thinker” too, not his note taker.  I reminded him of that…diplomatically, of course.  🙂

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