Remake the rules, rethink how you measure success, let your values lead you and ask bigger questions.
Being successful is in part, by definition, being different. However, organisations tend to crush that unique differentiator they seek.
The role that the fear of standing out and bureaucracy plays in smothering our innate maverick cannot be underestimated.
How a business becomes different and nurtures that innate spark in its people, is not solely because of an alchemy of psychology and economics but a third ingredient as well – you.
A you reorientated toward the organisation, your career and yourself, in a way that engages some of the deepest motivations. Questions about who we are, how we shape ourselves as individuals and leaders, and how we fit into organisations and society.
A true maverick isn’t someone who tears up the rule book. A business maverick doesn’t just break rules but remakes them, they are people who measure different metrics and ask bigger questions.
This is a human centred strategy. The answer must be people, because if it is profit centred then this business, your business, which you might be about to pour your life into, will be just like every other in its sector. It might survive a while, but will you flourish? Devoid of humanity, it will be far less profitable than it might have been. It will never reach its potential, and it will never be resilient.
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“A maverick wants to make a better world and they are resourceful.”
The difference between a conventional and a maverick business is partly the commitment it is given by its people and the corresponding quality of their ideas, paying dividends again and again.
The difference between a maverick and an oddball is measured in success and failure. Taking a measured risk, asking sometimes obvious questions, is the risk the maverick takes. A true maverick does not take wild risks. In turn, lifting the stigma around experimentation, testing and failing is one of the key challenges faced by organisations.
Universal questions in life are in a sense obvious, but in context they often become elusive. Questions the greatest minds have weighed about who we are and what we are to do with our lives, don’t seem relevant in an office.
What could they be used for in a business context?
Take for example that perennial list of hopes and gripes. We all know the laundry list, drafted on flip charts at team building events. Changing these lists begins with individuals, individuals who take up the moral obligation to be themselves, to take responsibility for the authorship of their lives. Or as Nelson Mandela said, ‘to become the change you want to see in the world.’
“A business maverick doesn’t just break rules but remakes them.”
Some might say ‘that is fine for the talented few’, but they rule themselves out at the start. As the late Dr George Land put it in his excellent Tedx Talk ‘The failure of success’, we are all born with creative genius, but too many of us forget who we are. We become inured to hearing the word ‘no’ and eventually a certain type of education grinds us down.
Here is how to promote maverick within you and in your organisation. It is a question of cherishing what is already present but has become dimmed with time. Here are three quick starting points:
A maverick’s ambition is to want to make a better world and they are resourceful, often great networkers and persuaders who leverage the organisation. The three other features are less obvious; mavericks are not afraid to experiment, experimenting responsibly within their framework; they are unconventional thinkers; and they are undeterred by setbacks.
It has been said that a good career is made up of five moments, five key decisions when you were at your best. Think about your career and imagine these maverick moments filling your everyday.
If you start to believe in yourself, and you choose who you really want to be, you too could be a business maverick.
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