Lessons from the Rule Breakers
These 'Mavericks at Work' use fresh thinking to win at business
Huston and others like him are seeking collective intelligence-whether from halfway around the world or a few offices down the hall. Once a year, Tom Brown, who runs a hedge fund called Second Curve Capital, sends every one of his 16 employees onto the streets of Manhattan to go into banks, open accounts, interact with tellers, and report on the experience. Brown, whose fund invests primarily in financial institutions, finds that his staff's detailed observations spotlight banking trends that he can't divine himself. Of course, the communal power of the Internet is also a potent tool for pooling ideas. A Cleveland company called NineSigma maintains a worldwide network of 1.2 million researchers. When client companies like P&G or General Motors encounter a problem their own experts can't solve, they enlist NineSigma to invite its specialists to offer solutions. "It's amazing to think there are people inside big companies spending millions of dollars to rediscover knowledge that already exists," observes CEO Paul Stiros.
Pursue more than money. Glen Senk, president of the retailer Anthropologie, likes to tell the story of a supersaleswoman who vastly outsold her colleagues on virtually every shift she worked. Senk went to her store one day to watch and realized she would push anything on customers, regardless of whether items matched or clothes looked good. So she was fired. Senk explains: "Our customers are our friends. It's never about the quick sale."
That might sound corny. But for many innovators, making money-which they unfailingly do-is part of a bigger mission. At Cranium, the upmarket toy company famous for games like Cranium and Cadoo, cofounder Richard Tait sounds evangelical about his company's purpose: "We conduct ourselves as if we are a global movement. It's the pursuit of a dream, to give everyone a chance to shine." Peter van Stolk, founder and CEO of Jones Soda, the quirky beverage company, says he started out aiming to do much more than sell soda. His ambition: "How could we create a connection with customers, let them play with the brand, let them take ownership of it?" The touchy-feely approach may not be a required course at business schools, but it produces loyal employees and customers-not to mention cheery results: Anthropologie, Cranium, and Jones Soda all succeed in cutthroat industries.
Partner with your employees. Every two months at privately owned Cranium, Chief Financial Officer Jack Lawrence holds a companywide meeting on the company's numbers. He tutors the staff on cash flow and financial ratios, and every employee then assesses his own productivity. That, Lawrence insists, helps keep the whole company focused on the right priorities. Dick Resch, CEO of KI Industries, a furniture maker in Green Bay, Wis., holds similar monthly meetings. As a growing employee-owned company, KI seems like a throwback compared with big competitors like Steelcase. Yet Resch attributes KI's success to a transparent environment. "I have tried to teach everyone, right down to the technicians on the floor, how to think like a businessperson," he says. "There are no secrets here."
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