In a world increasingly defined by volatility and rapid change, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s recent shareholder letter offers a compelling challenge to conventional workplace wisdom. His declaration that “absolutely do not stay in your lane” isn’t just provocative—it’s a fundamental rethinking of how modern organizations should function amid uncertainty, but is it right?
Rigidity Is Death
Dimon’s message comes at a critical time. Layoffs are here, workplace tensions rising, and global markets responding to political and economic pressures, many employees might instinctively retreat to the safety of their defined roles. Yet Dimon labels this approach “bureaucratic” and “stupid.” Strong words from one of the world’s most influential financial leaders.
His reasoning is compelling: “Our biggest mistakes happen when people think something is kind of a problem, but they are afraid to raise it in the right room where it might be provocative.” This fear of crossing boundaries stifles innovation and blinds organizations to emerging risks and opportunities.
The branch hours example Dimon shares perfectly illustrates this dynamic. Despite a clear competitive disadvantage by operating two fewer hours per day than rivals, not a single employee across multiple management layers spoke up. The collective silence represented a critical business failure born from rigid adherence to role boundaries and fear of disrupting the status quo.
Not speaking up and not being willing to fill gaps that your team and organization need can easily put a team member in the obsolete bucket. Your ability to see and adapt is a great way to find continued success. In this job market where human capital budgeting is volatile and there are very large numbers of candidates for every open positions, hiring managers have the opportunity to slow down their hiring process in order to find the candidates that check their boxes more (not check more of their boxes).
The Double-Edged Sword of Boundary-Breaking
However, while Dimon’s call to transcend boundaries has clear merits, we should consider the potential consequences of its widespread adoption. What happens when everyone in an organization feels empowered to weigh in on everything or that expectation are that team members always fill known gaps regardless of their role and skills?
1. Decision paralysis
When everyone has input on every decision, organizations risk getting bogged down in endless feedback loops. The democratization of input without clear decision-making frameworks can lead to stagnation rather than agility.
2. Expertise dilution
There’s real value in specialized knowledge. When boundaries disappear entirely, the voices of genuine experts may be drowned out by well-intentioned but less informed perspectives. Not every opinion carries equal weight on complex matters. You are at real risk of building a team of generalists as there is no incentive to focus on real expertise.
3. Accountability diffusion
When everyone is responsible for everything, paradoxically, no one may feel specifically accountable for anything. Clear lanes, while sometimes limiting, do create ownership structures that drive results. This also leads the performance and growth management ambiguity. Managers and mentors will have a hard time supporting teams with clear career journey mapping and constructive feedback. This will lead to team members to both:
- Burn out
- Unclear and unrealistic expectations on what success and growth look like within the organization.
4. Cognitive overload
Humans have finite cognitive capacity. Asking employees to monitor and contribute meaningfully across an entire enterprise may lead to shallow engagement rather than deep impact; a single team member likely can not be an expert in everything.
Finding the Balance
The key seems to be not abandoning lanes entirely, but rather making them permeable rather than rigid. Here’s what this might look like in practice:
1. Define core responsibilities while encouraging exploration
Employees need clarity about their primary responsibilities for themselves and others on the team while being encouraged to acknowledge and contribute beyond them. This balances focus with broader organizational awareness. Consistent reminders at the team and individual level is also greatly important as the stress of the day-to-day activities will push this back in the team’s mind only to return at times of reflection which will lead to negative perspective.
2. Create cultural safety for boundary crossing
Dimon’s emphasis that “there’s nothing wrong with disagreement” is crucial. This starts with being explicit around when a team member is intending to cross a boundary. Announcing the intention and setting parameters, like being specific about what will be done or what the timeframe for support is, in order to get agreement and acceptance from the team members already supporting that function. Doing this mitigates the risk of overstepping and having unintended, negative consequences. Additionally, organizations need to actively reward constructive challenges that come from outside traditional role boundaries.
3. Build systematic cross-functional exposure
Rather than expecting everyone to be everywhere all the time, create structured opportunities for cross-pollination of training, ideas, and perspectives. This explicit exposure will ensure everyone has the opportunity to both:
- Understand the whole which leads to better empathy, sympathy, and productivity as a team
- Give opportunity for every team member to explore and potentially find work they are more passionate and excited about
4. Develop skills for effective intervention
Speaking up and acting outside your lane requires specific skills—asking good questions, balancing confidence with humility, and communicating effectively across functional boundaries. These can and should be actively developed.
The Ultimate Imperative: Organizational Survival
Perhaps most telling is Dimon’s stark warning: “complacency, arrogance, bureaucracy and BS kill companies.” In an era where traditional industry boundaries are collapsing and disruption comes from unexpected directions, organizations that maintain rigid internal boundaries may find themselves fatally slow to adapt.
As we navigate through what Dimon calls a period of “considerable turbulence,” the ability to harness the full cognitive capacity of organizations—beyond artificial boundaries—may indeed determine which companies survive and thrive.
The challenge for leaders is clear: create cultures where boundary-crossing is welcomed while maintaining enough structure to ensure efficiency, expertise, accountability, and productivity. It’s not about having no lanes—it’s about building highways where changing lanes is not only permitted, but encouraged when the needs of the team and organization are asking for it.