Become a Maverick in Your BusinessBill Taylor was the cofounder and founding editor at Fast Company. Now an adjunct professor at Babson College, Taylor teaches a seminar for second year MBA students called the “Maverick Seminar,” named after his most recent book “Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in the Business Win.” Taylor joined Chris Hurn to discus Taylor’s book and its business applications. BT: The first question I often get when I talk about the book is, “Why did you write it.” And to me, the answer is: because we felt the business conversation was stuck. So, what we wanted to do with the book was to jump start or restart the conversation about the power of business at its best. In a nutshell, there’s a lot of very provocative-thinking and cutting-edge companies we got to visit, but in some sense, it’s an old-fashioned, back-to-basics book in the sense that we try to devise new and compelling answers to four basic questions — the four building blocks of business. What does it mean to have a winning, competitive strategy when the world is more competitive than ever? How do you connect with customers in an age when customers have more choices, more options, and are bombarded by more commercial messages than they can possibly process? Where new ideas come from exactly and what’s the smart way to unleash innovation? And last, but certainly not least, how do you attract more than your fair share of the best people in your field — how do you win the battle for talent? CH: That’s a good overview Bill. What I took away from it is that, this is a getting back to basics book because people have this incredible way of making things more complicated then they need to be. There have been mavericks all along, throughout business and throughout history. But you guys have taken 32 of the most cutting-edge mavericks and, through illustration and examples, you tell their stories by weaving them through the book itself. BT: You’re absolutely right; much of progress of the ages has been driven by people who were essentially seeing an opportunity… seeing something that most other people didn’t see, which in a nutshell, is a pretty decent definition of a maverick. Thirty, forty years ago, you could get by being a little cheaper than the next guy… a little higher quality… a little bit better. But in this day and age, given that there is so much competition in every industry, you can’t possibly win big if you’re content with doing things just a little bit better than everybody else. Originality really is the essence of strategy and what it means to be a company. In this day and age, “playing it safe” really isn’t playing it smart, because it’s only by rethinking conventional wisdom, only by standing for something really distinctive that you have a remote chance to stand out from the crowd in your industry. CH: You also defined what a maverick is. It includes being disruptive, not business as usual, rethinking their business and their industry, and having a distinctive, unique approach. BT: Right, but it doesn’t mean being arrogant, being brash, or being a jerk. You don’t have to be the smartest guy in the room anymore. The best leaders we got to know — and we use the mantra in the book — really do believe that nobody is as smart as everybody. Their job is not to always say, “I’ve got the answer to every question. I personally have the idea that it’s going to take this company to the next generation.” It’s, whether you’re the person that other smart people want to pitch-in with, collaborate with and share their best thinking with. And so there’s a difference between being a maverick and being a jerk. Or being a maverick and being a rabble rouser just for the sake of being a rabble rouser. CH: Those are great points Bill. If you’re leading change in your industry, there’s a delicate balance between doing it and staying under the radar versus bringing on the big behemoths in your industry who suddenly adapt your strategy… and then you’re no longer the maverick, there’s multiples of you out there. The first chapter, you actually titled, Not Just a Company, a Cause: Strategy is Advocacy. BT: ING Direct is a classic example. In December 2000, Arkadi Kuhlmann decided that he was going to create a new and better way to have a retail bank, and he created ING Direct USA with no brick and mortar presence whatsoever — no branches, no ATM machines, no checking accounts. He did everything with his customers over the web or over the phone. He offered a very small number of very easy to understand savings products. He kept costs really low, kept interest rates really high and started attracting a boatload of deposits. It’s an incredible, incredible business model story. And yet, when we sat down with Arkadi, we wanted to talk to him about the strategy, about the technologies. He said, “We’ll get to all that. I’m happy to talk about the products and services we sell, but what I first want to do is talk to you about the ideas we stand for, the values we’re fighting for.” Suddenly he became this consumer advocate and gave this really withering critique of the financial services culture in the United States. People, sometimes encouraged by big financial services companies and their advertising, spend too much, save too little, borrow too heavily, and invest too recklessly. And what ING Direct wanted to do, is serve as the antidote, an alternative to all that. The mission of this company… the sense of purpose behind it is that ING Direct exists to, “Lead Americans back to savings” and to be a spokesperson and a force for a savings culture in a country that is famous for its credit culture. We now use this term… rumor is George Carlin, the comedian is the one who coined it… we all know about de ja vu, the idea that when you go into a new situation, you feel like you’ve been there before. But what ING Direct does, what Southwest Airlines has done for so many years, is cultivate a sense of “vu ja de.” You could look at the same marketplace that everybody else is looking at, and yet you’re seeing it with fresh eyes. It’s as if you’re seeing it for the first time, and you’re seeing opportunities there that other people simply don’t see. CH: That’s a great summary, Bill. To me, it has to start with the idea. If you start with the idea, and like you said, critically think about what’s wrong in your industry… and let’s face it, every industry has its problems… but if you can try to put on the goggles for fresh eyes, it’s this idea of starting with what can be reformed or what you can be renewed in your industry. And then, whatever that idea is, making that your central focal point becomes your purpose. I don’t think enough companies tend to do that. If more did, you’d have an epidemic of mavericks on your hands. BT: So many companies, so many entrepreneurs have a very product-centric, category-centric, very MBA-driven view of the world, and what struck us when we’d talk to the folks at Southwest Airlines is they weren’t thinking there are a finite number of boxes and you choose your boxes. This is a very unique and original way of seeing opportunities in the market place. If you are fighting for ideas in the market, you’ve got to be very good at explaining those ideas. So it’s no surprise that mavericks tend to not just think about their businesses differently, but talk about them differently as well. CH: Well, they became not sellers of a product or service, but they’re educating others about the idea. It’s about what the product or service does for their customers. That’s the piece where I think most businesses get caught up missing. They’re selling the product or service, but they’re not selling what it does. Why would someone buy it? And it’s one of those elemental things that you scratch your head about. You don’t understand why so many businesses don’t seem to do that [explain the benefits]. BT: And by the way, it doesn’t mean you’re preachy. Some of these companies, like Southwest, use humor and outrageousness to be great. What you’re trying to do is get people’s attention and say, “We really are different, we stand for something different.” CH: We have a lot of folks that are from smaller and midsized companies, and I know we’re throwing around some bigger names, but obviously there are mavericks in all industries. BT: Oh, absolutely. One of the fun companies for me, because I got to eat their products, was Potbelly Sandwich Works, which is based in Chicago. It used to have one store, then it had 5, then 15 and it’s now got 100. It’s a growing national chain. What they said many years ago, is there’s no need to necessarily design a persona and a point of view down to the Nth detail at the beginning. You just do something that feels right and you grow into it. They designed a restaurant experience and a personality in the marketplace that was like the Starbucks of sandwiches. The sandwiches are absolutely fantastic, but what really distinguishes the restaurant is that so many sandwich shops literally have an assembly line and are meant to get you in and out as quickly as possible. In much the same way that Starbucks created a one-of-a-kind experience… likewise with Potbelly, they’ve got really funky décor and each store looks different. They all have a loft where local acoustic musicians are invited to play during lunch. Countless little touches like this. You walk in and you feel like, “Wow! This is such a unique thing.” CH: Too many businesses – - they want to be all things to all people. And really what the point of this first portion of the book, about rethinking your competition, is you need to focus on a niche. You need to lead your niche. BT: Scott Bedbury, a great marketing guy who’s worked at Nike and Starbucks, calls it the “spandex rule of strategy.” It’s the equivalent of people wearing spandex; just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. I mean, Southwest Airlines still doesn’t do assigned seating or, ala Jet Blue, will not put those TVs in the back of the seats. CH: Right, they know who they are. One of the things I found interesting in the book, was the ad agency that talks about walking in stupid everyday. Was that was Dan? BT: Dan Wieden of Wieden + Kennedy. In Dan Wieden’s case, advertising is a highly creative, professional services business where if you’re a great ad agency, you’re suppose to be the know it all. These entrepreneurs come to you with their hopes and dreams they believe are going to be great, and it’s your job to tell them you’re the smartest ad creators in the world, and you’re going to solve all of their problems. And that often translates into arrogance and a know-it-all quality among the leaders in the workplace. Wieden has been so good for so many years, about saying, “If this agency with huge, important clients, like Nike, thinks it’s going to survive because I’m always going to be the smartest ad man on the planet and I’m going to be able to address every problem we have that’s absolutely ridiculous.” So, he created techniques to invite outside influences into the agency. They took the first floor of their beautiful headquarters in Portland and turned it over to the Portland Museum of Contemporary Art. It’s not there because it looks nice, although it does, but because of the endless stream of avant-garde, cutting-edge, creative people coming in mingling and mixing with the ad agency. They’ve got an ad school called Twelve, where young people who want to break into the ad business actually pay to attend the ad school. Wieden + Kennedy does teach them the tricks of the trade to some degree, but they are doing it mainly because they want to learn from them. The old business school notion is the experience curve, “The longer you do something the better you get at it.” In this case, it’s all about the inexperience curve where you invite people with fresh eyes who aren’t encumbered by the conventional wisdom. Wieden sums this up by saying, his job isn’t to walk in everyday and convince everybody how smart he is, his job is to walk in stupid everyday and remind himself how much has changed in the world over the last 24 hours, how much he doesn’t know about so many different things, and keep that openness to ideas and modesty. BT: Every industry is on the verge of being utterly commoditized, where everybody is offering products and services that are incredibly well designed and affordable. The real challenge for companies is how to become more memorable to deal with as a company, how to we create a psychological contract with customers. Potbelly is a classic example. The sandwiches are great, but in the same way that Starbucks isn’t just about the coffee; Potbelly isn’t just about the sandwiches. It’s about an experience, a mindset, a role in the community, a look and a feel that really connects with people. CH: And it translates in all industries. Life is short, you might as well have fun with what you do, and you may as well do stuff that matters. For more information or to purchase Bill Taylor’s book “Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in the Business Win” visit www.mavericksatwork.com. About The Author:
A few other business achievements Chris has received:
Throughout his career, Chris has been in various leadership positions, including his background as business consultant and financier with GE Capital and as CFO for the NAI RealVest group of companies. Chris’ educational achievements are equally impressive. He graduated from Loyola University with two magna cum laude Bachelor Degrees; earned a Master’s Degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Center (formerly at the Wharton School of Business); and only spent one year at Georgetown University Law Center before wising-up about becoming an attorney. Chris is a frequent speaker and writer and has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, LA Times, the Sacramento Bee, the Orlando Sentinel, Scotsman Guide and many other regional and nationally-recognized trade publications. He maintains a busy civic calendar as a Board member with the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Board and the Florida Hospital Foundation Board, as well his involvement with many other esteemed community organizations. Chris is married to his wife of 12 years, Shannon, and has two children, Reilly and Julianna. |
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Chris Hurn is currently President, CEO, Cofounder and Board member of 
