Mavericks have a hard time in the Jamaican workplace.

More often than not, they tend to be young, political un-sophisticates who say the wrong thing at the wrong times in meetings, embarrassing their superiors.

But they are also the ones who see things differently, and are able to ask questions that no-one else has asked in ways that others are too scared to present publicly. They are invaluable for their perspective, and are passionate about making things better as soon as possible.

I speak from experience — I was a young maverick once, who worked in a high-tech company. AT&T Bell Labs was the premier research company of its day responsible for a variety of breakthrough inventions and discoveries, including more than a few Nobel Prizes in the sciences.

As a new employee, I belonged to a unit that did internal consulting to the rest of the company. In the five years I spent there I fully enjoyed the work, the people and the projects and I too saw that there were some critical changes that had to be made for the organization to fulfill its mission.

Like many mavericks, I worked alongside others who were just as young, and creative – graduates from some of the best schools in North America.

We had a radical vision of what our little consulting unit could become within AT&T, and put together a group called The Gang of X. Together we assembled a document that was nothing short of a call to arms to re-organize the operation so that it functioned more like a consulting firm than a research lab.

What fueled us is what fuels creatives in any company – a vision built on principles fuelled by an urgent need to take our organization and ourselves to the next level.

Like many who take up this kind of role at a young age, we were also pretty clumsy.

We didn’t know how to work inside the political confines of the organization, or how to communicate up the chain of command, and across different groups. It was easy to dismiss what we had to say in retrospect, simply because we didn’t follow the usual protocol, or simply because we took too many risks.

Here in Jamaica, I think we would have had to put up with more of the steady silence that comes when someone who isn’t ranked highly says something important. It happens not because people disagree, but because they don’t know what others higher up in the organization might think.

Here in Jamaica, creatives and mavericks don’t fit the mould, and here in Jamaica we like our employees at all levels to stay in their appointed places, especially when they are new. Many think that they should conform to the norm and “hold dem corners,” or just leave.

This is exactly what many of the best and brightest do, if they are courageous, and unencumbered by mortgage payments. Senior managers allow them to depart, doing little to encourage them to stay.

The company loses every time – those who are left are more of the mediocre, the scared and the cynical. By allowing its creatives to leave, the company is betting the company’s future on those that remain.

What can companies do to encourage its most creative talent to remain within their ranks?

The first is to realize that it’s not enough to allow creatives to stay, and to treat them like anyone else. Instead, they need to be encouraged to deepen their contribution at every step of their career.

They are people who are not happy to put up with the status quo, and the manager that realizes this fact will look for opportunities to put them on special teams, task forces and projects. This may involve giving them opportunities that the manager never had, or even wanted to have. In this case, sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander, and if a maverick is not constantly challenged to stand out from the pack they’ll leave for something more challenging.

That’s just good management: giving each employee whatever is needed to benefit both themselves and the company, and never trying to give each person the bare minimum.

Secondly, managers need to provide political cover for creatives. While the creative takes a risk to get something done, the manager needs to expend some political capital to protect them from others who might derail their efforts.

As one senior manager put it to me: they even need to be ready to take the blame if something goes down badly, sparing the maverick the punishment that could end their career.

This is not done because the maverick is a favorite. The fact is that the organization needs new thinking, but in Jamaica the “crab in a barrel” syndrome is so pervasive that extraordinary efforts needs to be made to protect those who venture to the top.

Lastly, managers need to put some effort into finding the best recruits possible. Companies like McKinsey & Co. go to great lengths to hire the best recruits from the top business schools. They pick them out during a series of 3 intense interviews with line managers. Those that are offered jobs are envied by their peers not only for the high salaries that are paid, but also for the fact that they made it through a tough process.

McKinsey realizes that top recruits don’t just wander in by accident. They must be assiduously sought out and encouraged to join the company, with the expectation that they’ll make a unique contribution. Once they are hired, it’s expected that they’ll provide a fresh level of energy and ideas to their new job, and bring the latest thinking that will help fuel the company’s rise to the next level.

Jamaican companies are no different. They need talent to survive, but managers need to go to great lengths to attract and retain it once it does show up.

Francis Wade
President and ceo
Framework Consulting Inc.
High-Stake Interventions
newsletter@fwconsulting.com
www.fwconsulting.com