Some years ago I was commissioned by a client, a major
multinational, to dig into the stories surrounding ten major innovations that
had taken place in the company over the past decade.
How had the innovations come about? Who was involved? What
sorts of personalities were involved? Who had had the original ideas behind
them?
We conducted one-to-one depth interviews with everyone
involved and it gradually became clear that the answer to that last question –
the originators ‒
was that they had each left the company. Some had been fired. Some had chosen
to leave. Several had set up their own businesses.
They were all described by surviving colleagues as highly
creative, but difficult. Unable to fit in. Resistant to rules, systems,
processes. Difficult.
And the company, which had previously recruited these kinds
of people on a regular basis, now effectively excluded them at source.
There emerged consensus from the survivors that the company was better off
without them, these mavericks. So much easier for them – and for us ‒ to be elsewhere. What I
noticed over succeeding years was that senior managers in the company became
highly conscious of the lack of breakthrough innovations now.
No one seemed to be prepared to connect these things
together.
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