5

Keeping the Three Boxes in Balance

The Three-Box Solution requires an ability to think and act simultaneously in multiple time frames. As we’ve seen in the examples throughout this book, you’re always managing the present, destroying the past, and building the future. At times, you will have to focus more on one box than the others, but the tools in this book will help you attend to all three boxes with your teams and others in your organization.

But what happens when things get truly out of balance? How do you keep all three boxes going at once?

To address this question, we look to the unlikely story of Willow Creek Community Church—an organization run by MBAs and that is the subject of a popular Harvard Business School case—to see how an ...

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