Going Through Walls or Around Them

I was having breakfast with a friend earlier this week, and we were talking about his business. Specifically, his relationship with his co-founder. Here's how he summarized it:

There's one key difference between us. When I see a wall in front of me, I try to figure out how to get around it. Should I scale it? Go around it? He doesn't do that. He just walks through it.

A bad thing? No, actually, quite the opposite -- it makes them a great team. Walls can be scaled, circled, tunneled under or simply plowed through. But as an entrepreneur, you have to get to the other side of any obstacle, and having as many tools as possible at your disposal is a good thing. If one strategy doesn't work, you need the ability to try at least a few others on the road to cracking a tough problem.

It's been said before, but it's worth repeating: bring different personalities onto your team. Bring different backgrounds. Hammers see everything as nails, et cetera, and it's impossible to totally check your biases at the door. The best you can do is bring together an interesting combination of biases.