Love those mavericks

By VIKKI BLAND


Call them what you will - loose cannons, eccentrics, rule breakers, rebels - chances are such individuals are also highly talented, stellar performers, loved by customers and staff alike and intolerant of illogical bureaucracy, back-watching colleagues and stagnating employers.

"Often they are the only ones looking after the customer," says Dave McMillan, director for executive coaching and strategic consulting firm Simply Strategic.

McMillan says so-called rule breakers tend to be individuals of extreme individuality, fired by a sense of passion, who often take a risk to do the right thing for the customer.

Conversely, he says when organisations reach a status quo and are not in commercial or financial "pain" they can become risk-averse and lethargic, developing staff behaviour policies that they want followed simply because they like things to be predictable.

As the organisation becomes more established, the needs and wants of its customers are then pushed into a "back room" of understanding where the business pays only lip service to customer service.

"They then forget what made them a success in the first place - and that's where rule breakers come into their own. You need independent thinkers who will challenge this status quo," says McMillan.

However, independent thinkers sometimes grate with their employers. One rule breaker who hated his Auckland employer's policy of opening and shutting the car park gates at militarily precise times, drove his company car through the closed gates, parked, then walked over the destroyed gates and started his work day as if nothing had happened.

Another resigned from his job to testify on behalf of a customer and against his employer in a court "because we were in the wrong".

Yet another drove a utility vehicle into a shop front to repossess goods from a non-paying customer who had physically threatened his sales team.

The CEO of an Auckland IT employer got more than he bargained for when he called his rule breaker - an innovative middle manager - a "loose cannon".

Incensed, the former employee set up in competition with his former employer and quickly won over customers who had been fans of his.

He continued to systematically win business at the expense of his former employer until the former employer was forced to try to buy him out.

McMillan says it is common for passionate, customer-driven people who are frustrated with unnecessary rules or bureaucracy to decide to go it alone.

"They are, by nature, very entrepreneurial. But that doesn't mean they're not employable or manageable. If they go, that's a loss to the employer," he says. (See side box for tips on engaging and managing rule breakers.)

Interestingly, many management and innovation experts recommend employers hire people who challenge them and make them feel uncomfortable.

American business and management guru Professor Robert Sutton says in his book Weird Ideas that Work: 11 Practices for Promoting, Managing, and Sustaining Innovation that businesses do well when they find happy, innovative people then get them to fight in a collaborative way.

"That's because conflict is essential to innovation and growth. It's interesting that Sutton's advice is to reward success and failure but punish inaction," says McMillan.

While some of Sutton's other ideas seem ludicrous at face value (see side box) Sutton is well qualified to comment. He is professor of management science and engineering, co-director of the centre for work, technology, and organisation at Stanford University and has a PhD in organisational psychology. He has also written 90 articles and seven books on management practices.

McMillan says calling a free thinker a loose cannon (or anything else insulting) is derogatory and inaccurate if the individual is effective and not destructive to the business. Instead, he says employers should retain rule breakers and try to establish a team of them.

"These people can be valuable because they constantly come up with ideas no one has thought of. If they develop a team as comfortable about challenging and rule breaking as they are, that's even better - you can't expect one individual to look after the customer on their own."

Rule breakers may also need protecting from company politics and overly political career climbers who retaliate when rule breakers challenge or expose their inaction.

"It's extremely common for other managers to take the credit for the accomplishments of the rule breaker while feeling resentful and jealous at the same time," says McMillan.

He says young people tend to be more independent in their thinking than the middle-aged and senior employees, and perhaps surprisingly, women can be more inclined to break rules than men.

"Men get locked into a position of political power."

In his March online publication (www.thinkingmanagers.com) creative thinking and business management author Robert Heller says organisations must beware professional managers who "unite the vices of the bad businessman and the bureaucratic booby". He calls these managers "corpocrats".

"The root cause [of corpocrats] can infect any business. It lies in the increasing remoteness of the top management from the real business, and rising management preoccupation with internal stuff, like turf wars, instead of external necessities - like looking after the customers," says Heller.

Wise employers will take note - and maybe give rule breakers a key to the gates.


How to be innovative


1: Hire people who make you feel uncomfortable, or even those you dislike

2: Hire people you don't need (at least that's what you think)

3: Use job interviews to get ideas, not to screen candidates

4: Encourage people to ignore and defy superiors and peers

5: Find some happy people and get them to fight

6: Reward success and failure, punish inaction

7: Decide to do something that will probably fail, then convince yourself and everyone else that success is certain

8: Think of some ridiculous or impractical things to do, then plan to do them

9: Avoid, distract and bore customers and anyone who just wants to talk about money

10: Don't try to learn anything from people who seem to have solved the problems you face

11: Forget the past, especially your company's successes

* From Weird Ideas That Work by Robert I. Sutton.


Growing rule breakers


* Track and reward new ideas implemented each year

* Have the CEO cite innovation as a business priority and outline incentives

* Develop a formal innovation process

* Design a working environment that encourages innovation

* Give innovators the freedom to express what they are about; let them be their own person; don't sweat the small stuff

* Include them in anything to do with the customer or innovation, and product and service development

* The more established an organisation, the more it is at risk of complacency. Because complacency drives innovators away, be proactive. Don't wait for commercial or financial pain, or "turnaround time" to embrace independent thinkers