Gaining ground
Mavericks at work: No more business as usual
William C. Taylor, co-author with Polly Labarre of Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win, posits that maverick companies aren’t always the largest in their fields, nor are maverick leaders always highly visible. Mavericks are leaders who know how to keep up with change. They’re committed learners who ask themselves: “Am I learning as fast as the world is changing?”
Taylor contends business belongs to companies that dominate their markets by defying conventional wisdom, and to the leaders who build great organizations by bringing out the best in everyone through originality, creativity and experimentation.
In the following Q&A, Mr. Taylor discusses four key Maverick Messages.
Maverick Message 1: Sizing up your strategy
AWARE: What do you mean by sizing up strategy?
TAYLOR: You can’t do big things as a company if you’re content with doing things a little better or a bit differently from the ways in which you’ve done them in the past. We’re living in the age of disruption. The reality is hyper competition and nonstop dislocation. To stand out, companies must offer something special. Ask yourself, “If our company went out of business tomorrow, who would really miss us and why?”
Originality is the acid test of strategy and the real question is, “How do you embrace one kind of strategic idea in a world filled with me-too thinking? How can you see opportunities in your marketplace that conventional wisdom has overlooked?” The companies that are winning develop a strategic point of view that distinguishes them. The most powerful ideas are the ones that set forth an agenda for reform and renewal, the ones that turn a company into a cause.
Maverick Message 2: Open-minding your business
AWARE: Can you explain open-minding your business?
TAYLOR: The old definition of leaders was that they did the thinking and were the smartest people in a room. Today, the most creative leaders understand that nobody alone is as smart as everyone together. They know that the most powerful ideas come from unexpected places. They understand that the people who interact with customers often introduce as many participants and voices into the strategic conversation as the leaders.
The group mind comes up with ideas and insights; creating an “architecture of participation” is a big shift. Maverick leaders challenge themselves to be open to new ideas and new ways of leading and entice smart people to become part of their companies by the way they conduct business.
Maverick Message 3: Building your bond with customers
AWARE: Why is this important and how can companies build these bonds?
TAYLOR: Culture is your brand, and your brand is culture. I urge organizations to ask themselves, “ What kind of presence and personality do we offer in the marketplace? Do customers feel an emotional dedication to do business with us?”
Business people have been focused on dollars and cents, efficiency and the traditional measures of quality. But in this age of sensory and product choice overload the real magic comes from creating an emotional bond that separates you from everyone else. Ask your customer, “Can you imagine a world without this brand?” For customers to say, “No, I can’t,” requires a strong connection.
Long-term, companies that create distinct experiences and relevant messages compel customers to feel a psychological bond that sets their companies apart. These companies develop brands that click with customers.
Maverick Message 4: Practicing your people skills
AWARE: Why is this critically important?
TAYLOR: As a company, are you winning the battle for talent share as well as market share? You have to be adamant about the human side of enterprise, treating it as the most important building block of success. You have to be smarter, faster, more creative than your competition in selling products and in recruiting, evaluating and teaching your people. The battle for talent is as fierce as the battle for customers.
Why? The quality of a company’s performance can’t exceed the quality of the performers in the company. In many companies talent management remains in the backwater. You must be serious about the people side of your business. The organizations that are winning treat the people side of their businesses as creatively and as urgently as they treat other aspects. If you want an organization filled with great ideas, you have to fill it with great, creative people who have creative ideas.
When I visit companies doing research for books, I ask, “Why would great people want to be part of your company?” Your leadership team has to have an answer to that question at every level. Really talented people tend to figure out ways to do work they love in companies about which they’re excited.
William C. Taylor’s book, Mavericks at Work, helped change how companies and their leaders navigate in a fast-moving world and devise strategies that win in the marketplace. Taylor is a cofounder and founding editor of Fast Company, a magazine which recently celebrated its tenth anniversary and has won coveted awards, including “Startup of the Year” and “Magazine of the Year.” Taylor has published numerous essays and CEO interviews in the Harvard Business Review, and his monthly column, Under New Management ran in the Sunday Business section of The New York Times. His new column, Bill Taylor on Big Ideas, runs in The Guardian newspaper of London. Taylor’s new book, Practically Radical: Not-So-Crazy Ways to Transform Your Company, Shake Up Your Industry, and Challenge Yourself will be published January 4, 2011. It focuses on how businesses can make big positive change in difficult industries. You can learn more about Taylor at www.MavericksAtWork.com.
