Maverick Or Maintainer?
Some of Americas brightest minds... Most brilliant inventors and foremost creative people are lost to public and private sector organizations because of institutional arrogance, prideful leadership and bureaucratic red tape which creates a culture of mediocrity. That manner of organizational mindset always leads itself blindly towards a special kind of peril... One in which it's varicose structures are found wholly incapable of the creative maverick like thinking which is necessary to navigate the stormy waters of history. It has been said that you can always count on America to do the right thing after they have exhausted everything else first. I would say that the complacency (maintenance thinking) that allows status quo managers rather than visionary leaders into positions of power and influence, actually create the opportunities for the great ones to rise up when the ineptitude of those preceding them have been rattled loose from their controlling mediocrity. This does not come without travail. For mediocrity does not breed inspiration but inspiring people breed inspiration and those people are anything but mediocre. They are the mavericks. No one has made a lasting positive impact upon human society by following the crowd and playing it safe.
When a public or private sector organization devolves into the dialectic of "maintenance thinking" it becomes rigid, hyper predictable and brittle. This alone creates the conditions for competitors to exploit its unseen weaknesses. Instead of taking risk and breaking the cycle of dysfunction to course correct, far too often these organizations fall into the organizational OCD death spiral constructing more bureaucracy. This of course only causes more problems feeding the exponential quotient. When they should be taking more innovative risk they actually do the opposite which locks out the very mavericks they need to right the ship.
When a nation, an organization or a people don't take risk, they by default cede their opportunities to those who will rise up and take the necessary risk in the time of disruption when fear grips and tears at those who merely tried to maintain their positioning. Innovation and creative solutions are fearful things to those who have become slaves to their maintenance of present position. Such static thinking creates its destruction by denial mechanisms meant to "maintain" over "move forward." Nothing in this world is truly static. Everything is dynamic and ever changing. When business or government or individuals settle for "maintain" they are actually choosing the dynamic of loss instead of gain. As the organization is disrupted it either adapts to changing conditions or it perishes.
But alas this is when those visionaries... Those mavericks rise to the occasion and seize the day. Every great victory is preceded by years of agonizing failures and setbacks. But are they really failures and setbacks? No they are part of the crucible which makes the maverick into who they really are. So too this can be with organizations.
Are you a maverick or a maintainer? Does you organization and it's leadership exhibit maverick or maintainer tendencies?
Does your professional DNA admire or loath mavericks? Your survival in the new economy may depend on how you and your organization answer that question. Are you willing to accept the mavericks? Because they won't stop being mavericks even if you don't trying stop being in their way. They will succeed. They will rise and one day you will need those unknown mavericks to step up whether you like it or not. They are here and they are coming in greater numbers. You can bet they will bring real change to you and your organizations. Or they will replace them. Better a friend than a foe.
A few thoughts to ponder from an American Maverick. Think it forward now.
-Max Daves
CEO (idea)ology Group
Co-founder Safe Haven Strategic
(futurist | serial innovator | global strategist | visionary | socially conscious entrepreneur | radical solutionist | status quo disruptor | chief idea-ologist)
"Break the rules they taught you in business school. If it really worked they wouldn't have been teaching them to you... They would have been proving it works by doing it. Now let's go think up something new and make it happen."
If you are interested in learning how to take yourself, your ideas or your organization "maverick" email max@idea-ology.com or visit www.idea-ology.com