Make Room for Mavericks

The UK in Europe, Canada at Kyoto; it’s been a good week for going against the flow.

So should we condemn those who refuse to follow the concensus, congratulate them, or just ignore them?

At Corporate Rewards we spend a lot of time  promoting  team-building and nurturing team engagement, and it’s something we believe strongly in.  But breaking away from the team and going it alone is not automatically a bad thing.

The lone individual going against the flow can be a trouble-maker, an idiot, a visionary or a maverick.  Often it’s only when the results of their actions become apparent that we can make that judgement.  Visonaries and Mavericks do have a way of moving things forward, and sometimes somebody heading firmly in the wrong direction can actually benefit the team;  These brave, egocentric, contrary souls can open our eyes to alternatives,  however flawed or ill-advised.   We need to remember how often there is another way.

So we rarely design motivation programmes which focus exclusively on team performance.  However important it is to move the whole team forward, raising the productivity bar and building the business together, we always include an element of recognition and reward for the exceptional individual, the risk-taking maverick who may well break away or leave the rest of the team behind in his or her path to outstanding achievement.

If you’re going in one direction and everybody else is heading the other way, the odds are you’ve mis-understood the situation.  But it’s also just possible that they’ve got it wrong and you haven’t.  Business needs both – the team and the maverick – and there’s room in the world for us all.