Path or Wall

My undergraduate degree was in Physical Science, consisting of a general science track heavily focused on math and chemistry. Upon graduation, I knew a career in the sciences was not my destiny. Fortunately, I landed a contract role as a residence manager, which served as a perfect bridge while I figured out my long-term goals. I knew I wanted to work with people, lead teams, and explore my growing fascination with organizational culture. Seeking a stepping stone, I enrolled in Human Resource Management courses at a local college, believing an HR certificate would generate opportunities to develop my leadership skills and organizational development curiosity. Three courses in, I abruptly stopped. I realized the reality of the HR field didn't match my expectations; the curriculum was not going to propel me into a career of leading people and building culture. I thought I was walking down a promising path, only to discover I was staring at a wall.

That early realization wasn't the last time my encounters with the HR profession felt more like walls than pathways. To be clear, this is not a critique of HR professionals or a takedown of their departments. Rather, I use my HR experiences to illustrate how individuals and organizations can cultivate better cultures by understanding the profound difference between a path and a wall. A path is explicitly designed to guide you toward a destination, whereas a wall is built to divide or enclose. Leaders and organizations are perpetually caught in a struggle between these two concepts. What one department views as a clear path, another experiences as an insurmountable wall. Furthermore, the longer these structures stand, the harder they are to remove. In fact, the paths and walls within our organizations boast some of the longest legacies, often outliving the people who created them.

Consider a specific experience I had with an HR department early in my career as a senior leader. I was wrestling with a difficult staffing situation and, knowing I had a tough decision ahead, I wanted to gain perspective on my options. At my supervisor's suggestion, I booked an appointment with HR. Prior to the meeting, I clearly laid out the scenario and my goals: I wanted to understand the organization's history with similar cases and identify any unforeseen issues. I was actively looking for paths to reach the necessary destination. Instead, I was met with nothing but walls. I was told that HR could only offer advice and that the final decision rested entirely on my shoulders—something I already knew. I was instructed to review the collective agreement—something I had already done. We talked in circles. No matter how I reframed my questions, I received variations of the same rigid answers, devoid of nuance, exploration, or foresight. Who built these walls? Was it the individual, the organization, the HR profession, or my own line of questioning? It was likely a combination of all four. However, the foundation of that wall was undoubtedly the organizational and professional expectations placed upon the HR department. Given my education and experience, I understood that HR departments frequently state they are not the ultimate decision-makers regarding employee performance. But there is a massive gulf between making a decision (the wall) and exploring strategic alternatives (the path).

As a leader who thrived on innovation, worked diligently to build innovative cultures within my teams, and eventually led an innovation department, our creative momentum frequently crashed into the walls of policy, collective agreements, and entrenched practices. Again, I will use HR as an example. Our organization craved and required change, with strategic mandates and operational directives laying out the path forward. Yet, countless innovation opportunities were delayed, curtailed, or terminated by HR-related walls. While these walls sometimes served a valid purpose in protecting the people and the organization, they more frequently blocked the consideration of alternative paths and served as barriers to innovation. Formal agreements and policies formed part of the barrier, but they were rarely insurmountable. The true monoliths were the ingrained norms of the department and its people. For roughly 80% of our daily work, we rely on familiar, well-worn paths that predictably lead to success. These paths are created by individuals, organizations, and professional standards. However, when that remaining 20% of our work demands new routes, following those same tried-and-true paths transforms them into high, insurmountable walls. You can spot these walls in phrases like, “We have not done that before,” “You don’t understand,” “Go do some more consultation,” or “That will create a precedent”. Over my 30+ year career, I have had these exact conversations repeatedly. When my team attempted to implement a new idea, we hit these walls, and the dialogue rarely resulted in their removal. Occasionally, someone in HR might discreetly point out a secret tunnel to bypass the barrier, but that tunnel would vanish after use. Most of the time, driving innovation required a "fly over"—convincing enough senior executives to parachute us over the obstacle. Yet, even after successfully navigating it, the wall remained stubbornly intact, ready to block the next similar situation. In my entire career, I can only recall a couple of instances where walls were shrunk, and I struggle to remember a time when a wall was completely removed to become a path.

You might assume I have no use for walls and believe everything should be a path, or that I dismiss the value of HR departments. That is only partially true. My leadership disposition heavily favours paths over walls. I believe deeply in the power of dissonance and discussion, focusing first on understanding and agreeing upon the desired outcomes. Once the destination is clear, we can identify which walls are necessary, allowing multiple paths to emerge for achieving success. For many leaders, however, the discussion starts backward: they focus entirely on the existing paths and walls rather than the outcomes. They debate how to get somewhere and fixate on the personal or organizational limits restricting them. For many HR departments, their purpose is to explicitly show managers the paths and walls that must be followed, showing little interest in exploring or creating around the actual outcome. For example, if I wanted to hire an economic development specialist for a college to cultivate a new community industry, HR would dictate the standard process for approvals, job descriptions, and hiring—the walls and paths that work for typical situations. But for an experimental role, those standard structures prevent success. The position won't fit neatly into a collective agreement, the vaguely defined duties impact pay ratings, and the hours and funding are subject to change. These factors make the existing walls higher and turn normal administrative paths into walls, leaving the hiring manager in a difficult bind.

The core leadership lesson here, whether you are an HR professional or not, is that organizations and leaders need walls. The key is to figure out which ones are essential and build them intentionally—but do not build them unnecessarily high. Instead of drafting rigidly defined policies, construct general policies supported by clear processes. This applies on an individual level, too. Leaders must determine which walls are essential for effective leadership without locking in inflexible behaviours. For me, respect is a fundamental wall; I believe everyone deserves mutual respect, though the specific behaviours I apply adapt to the person and circumstance. Crucially, walls must be built with on-ramps and off-ramps, designed so they can be dismantled and reassembled. They require elasticity and, occasionally, invisibility. When a wall is challenged or starts showing cracks, it is a signal to review, renew, or remove it. Challenges force me into introspection, often leading me to adjust my own walls. Organizations must do the same. Dissent should be viewed as engagement, not disagreement. And silence should never be mistaken for agreement; it usually means people are digging secret tunnels or planning fly overs, signaling that a wall renovation is necessary.

Organizations and leaders also desperately need paths. We are excellent at publicly declaring paths,like announcing, "Go see your HR team or manager, they are here to help". Yet, when people attempt to walk these paths during difficult times, they quickly discover the path is actually a wall. Paths need to remain paths. If you claim to be there to help, actually be helpful. If a declared path proves to be a wall, people learn instantly and never attempt it again, assuming it will always be blocked—until they see repeated, strong evidence that the wall has fallen. Leaders should cultivate well-worn paths that lead to broad destinations. For instance, I have a wide, well-worn path for innovation with many forks, all acting like tributaries leading to a large body of water. Some leadership paths, like innovation, come naturally to me, while others, like care and empathy, I have had to work hard to develop. Sometimes, leaders and organizations just need to bushwhack. They must attempt to blaze a trail through dense, complex situations. This off-trail approach might result in a temporary detour or lay the groundwork for a future well-worn road. The hesitation to bushwhack occurs because people only see the density and complexity of a new route, especially when a well-worn path with clear walls sits right next to it. To overcome this, ground yourself in your desired outcomes and explore the risks of sticking to the normal route. Once explored, the dense and complex becomes less daunting than the tried and true. The single most important element to building paths is curiosity. Remaining curious about the problem or the people prompts me to take the first step in a new direction, initiating the creation of a new path. With this approach, our tried-and-true paths may become overgrown. We can look back at the remnants of old paths that served us well in the past, knowing that if we ever truly need them again, we can still follow them.

Paths and walls are essential for personal and organizational success. Our choices to follow or build them are driven by a "can not or will not" mindset. If you or your organization are struggling, it is likely because of the specific walls and paths that have been established. Viewing these structures through the "can not or will not" lens changes your perspective, hopefully driving you to make changes by building new walls and paths, eliminating obsolete ones, or, at the very least, learning to find the secret tunnels and execute the fly overs.