Leading Clever People, Forbes Aug 2009

Leadership

The Odd Clever People Every Organization Needs

Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, 08.13.09, 04:45 PM EDT

Here's how to identify them and lead them.

As we ponder how the Western economies can navigate their way out of the recession, we might easily make the harsh judgment that clever people got us into it and we'll need clever people to get us out of it. The investment banks at the heart of the current financial malaise were full of clever people. So what went wrong? Is it possible we didn't really understand how to lead them?

The truth is that organizations need a particular kind of clever employees--people with a propensity for innovation and even iconoclasm. People who happily tread on organizational sacred ground while seeking new ways to produce sustained economic growth. They can add disproportionate amounts of value, and they become more productive when they are well led. They are people like Will Wright of Electronic Arts ( ERTS - news - people ), the originator of "Sim City" and "Spore." They need teams--teams that have their own high-octane dynamics. To develop such teams, businesses must become clever organizations, magnets for these people who can sustain innovation over long periods.

How do we identify such people?The first and most obvious point to make is that they are not simply those with the highest IQs or most impressive academic qualifications (although many of them do meet those standards). Our conversations and observations have led us to develop a simple definition:

Clever people are highly talented individuals who have the potential to create disproportionate amounts of value from the resources that an organization makes available to them.

When we first set out to research these smart and powerful, yet often recalcitrant clever people, we thought they would be consultants, lawyers, investment bankers, research-and-development wizards and other similar smart professionals. Many of them were, but we also found value-creating brilliance in a huge variety of places--in schools, in hospitals, in fast-moving consumer-goods businesses, in breweries and not just in those institutions' R&D departments. Clever people can be schoolteachers, university and hospital administrators, museum curators. But as disparate as they are, they are all capable of creating huge amounts of value for organizations.

Many highly talented individuals are capable of producing remarkable results on their own, outside of any organization. Such standalone clever people include most famous artists and solo musicians. But those aren't the people we're talking about. We specifically mean talented individuals who need an organization to achieve their full potential. The brilliant engineers at Cisco ( CSCO - news - people ) need the organization and their colleagues as they seek to revolutionize the way we work, learn and play.

In the U.S., we know, being clever carries connotations of being ostentatiously smart and difficult. We prefer the English meaning, being skilled and talented, with the understanding that being smart usually comes with a few rough edges. The truth is that these people are both talented and difficult.

Why must they be difficult? Because they all share these qualities:

--They know their worth (their skills are not easily replicated).

--They ask difficult questions.

--They are organizationally savvy.

--They are not impressed by corporate hierarchy.

--They expect instant access to decision makers.

--They are well connected outside of their organizations.

--Their passion is for what they do, not for who they work for.

--Even if you lead them well, they won't thank you.

How do you spot the clevers who really make a positive difference? In recent years organizations have been obsessed with identifying talent. Most large organizations have singled out what are often called "talent pools" and "high potentials." We would sound a note of caution: Look more for past outcomes than for potential. Clever people develop track records of organizational success.

Once you have identified them, how do you lead them? The conventional wisdom is that you should act as a benevolent guardian. Explain rather than tell, give space and resources, provide recognition, protect from organizational noise, connect with other clevers and so on. This may be necessary, but it is insufficient.

In the clever organization, benevolence is balanced with discipline. Clever people are most productive when they're given boundaries. As much as they need autonomy, they also need structure. Creating the right sort of space--large enough to allow clevers to express themselves, but also with systems and structures to help them focus their efforts--is vital. One without the other is dangerous and ultimately unproductive.

Cleverness thrives in response to real-world challenges with real-world constraints. This is exemplified by the careers of the world-renowned consulting engineers Ove Arup & Partners. They responded to the peculiarities of their assignments by producing the Beijing cube swimming pool and the Sydney Opera House.

It is sometimes suggested that people can be energized to achieve goals by leaders encouraging them that everything is possible. That kind of optimism often doesn't work with clever people. They seem to prefer the reverse. Tell them something isn't possible and they'll be highly motivated to prove you wrong. The world needs them to be right.

Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones are the co-authors of Clever: Leading Your Smartest, Most Creative People. Rob Goffee is a professor of organizational behavior at London Business School. Gareth Jones is a fellow of the Centre for Management Development at London Business School and a visiting professor at INSEAD.