Field Note 7: "Don't cross the box"

Early in my career, I got a call from a Local Agency lead. Polite. Direct. Dutch.

"Chris, you crossed the box."

I didn't know it at the time, but that sentence was one of the most useful lessons I'd learn about ownership, politics, and respecting process in big organisations.

Most people read "Don’t cross the box" and think it means "stay in your lane and don’t be ambitious." So they either shrink themselves…or they ignore the advice completely and bulldoze through boundaries (As I did, unintentionally).

That’s not the lesson.

This is about respecting ownership and power structures in complex organisations. There’s a difference between acting like a proactive leader and acting like you outrank someone in a room where you don’t.

Now, before I jump into solving anything, I ask: whose box is this?

If it’s mine, I go hard. If it isn’t, I bring the person who owns it with me. I don’t present “solutions” to their boss without them in the room. I don’t bypass local teams to impress global. I especially don’t confuse speed with authority.

I was young. Eager. Slightly arrogant, if I'm honest.

The local client was frustrated with Global creative direction of a new product launch. I was on the Global team, and I'd somewhat befriended the the local client. I thought I'd do them a favour and told them not to worry, said we'd continue running their version of the ads.

Not my call to make.

I thought I was being proactive. Taking responsibility. Doing them a favour.

What I was actually doing was crossing the box and undermining the whole thing.

Next day, I got a very polite yet direct call from my Dutch counterpart. Informing me that I had crossed the box.

I was defensive at first. The work in market was better. Why change something that was working?

But that wasn't the point.

I'd bypassed the person who actually owned that relationship. I'd unintentionally signalled that I didn't trust them to handle it.

A few weeks later, the same issue came up again. But this time I did it differently.

Instead of taking it upon myself to "solve it," I walked it through with the local lead. We refined it together. They presented it back to the global team.

Same idea. Different approach, nuanced to their culture.

It landed better. The relationship strengthened. And I was brought further in, not pushed out.

"Don't cross the box" taught me the importance of building trust inside the structure before you try to change it.

Ambition is good. So is initiative. But if you want to play the long game in complex systems, learn the lines before you redraw them.

Thanks for reading, and see you next week!

Murph