“Clever — Leading Your Smartest, Most Creative People” by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, Harvard Business Press, $26.
Clevers are defined as highly-motivated, talented creative thinkers who utilize their organizations’ resources to fulfill their potential. They don’t just own their jobs. They apply entrepreneurial, “Eureka!” spirit. That makes them organizational intrapreneurs. Depending on how they’re managed, clevers “can be brilliant, difficult — and sometimes even dangerous,” the authors say.
Making clevers brilliant involves understanding and playing into their psyches. The authors identify a number of their traits: They do what they are, and define themselves by their passion, not their employer. That passion makes them the go-to people. Their skills are not easily replicated because their knowledge “resides in not what they know but who they know and how they know it. Clevers are organizationally savvy; they cultivate the internal resources they need and know the toes they shouldn’t step on (but often do). To satisfy the professional and developmental needs of clevers, managers need to connect clevers within the firm.
Why? Clevers get the job done, and function best in a work environment where they aren’t so much told what to do as one where they’re shown what must be done — and then allowed to figure out the how. They don’t pay attention to people (including managers) who can’t help them execute. You earn their respect with expertise, not a job title.
Clevers need to steered, not led. Managers who support and coach, by bringing a sense of latitude and boundary, process and timescale, effectively steer clevers. Such managers understand that failure is part of learning, and protect their clevers from organizational “rain”. Also, if “No” is the answer, managers should explain the reasons behind it.
Support and coaching also involves a manager’s demonstrated expertise. While sharing knowledge in the same or similar field earns respect, so does complementary knowledge (i.e. different field but valuable to execution).
Overriding message: If you want to ensure clevers display their brilliance, not their faults, “convince them your company can help them succeed.”
“Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Broadway Books, $26.
The Heaths take the mumbo-jumbo psycho-babble out of emotional intelligence. They characterize the brain as a two-party system that doesn’t believe in a bipartisan approach to making decisions. When change enters the mental landscape, the logical side collides with the animal-emotional side.
They introduce, and accomplish bipartisanship with three principles:
1. Make sure the logical side knows why change must occur, what forms it may take and the results. The success key: Making sure that you limit your choices of forms. Why? Decision paralysis occurs when there are too many choices. “Clarity dissolves resistance.”
2. Motivate the animal brain by “finding the feeling”. Essentially, it’s a marketing exercise. You have to find the trigger that allows the emotional side to agree with the logical side. The trigger deals with identity and interpretation, not information. While the future may be fuzzy, showing someone what they can be/do post-change becomes a motivator.
3. Shape the path for change by tweaking the environment. Build new habits that flow from existing ones. This allows people to expand their comfort zone without thinking they’re entering the danger zone. Ask for input — and listen to it. When people know their voice is heard, their emotional side synchs with their logical side.
Jim Pawlak is a nationally syndicated book reviewer.
