Customer Reviews

Clever: Leading Your Smartest, Most Creative People

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The slim book (200 pages) is set in three sections:

Part I: Leader and Led (Understanding your best talent & recognizing their importance to your company; "Clever" people frequently add disproportionate value to the firm)

Part II: Clever Teams; (Focusing on characteristics of clever teams, their environments and how they function - pitfalls and issues when assembling)

Part III: Clever Organizations (How firms can maximize potential/productivity of Clevers)

My recap:

1) Authors serve up an engaging writing style with a good mix of interviews, analysis and case studies

2) First 2-3 chapters set up the book and pack the most punch. The later chapters develop the first two.

3) Seasoned managers may find a number of common sense passages and business clichés (saying thank you for a job well done; Clevers need recognition; dysfunctional teams cause problems; 3 hour meetings might be too long). Furthermore, there is not much new in this book, but the authors lay out the do's and don'ts, the pro's and con's and the problems and opportunities - that raise levels of awareness for all managers and may connect a few dots that weren't connected before.

4) Some solid analysis and discussion around leading Clevers (leading clever people requires a degree of humility; traditional Command and control approach doesn't work; explanation and persuasion and straight talk are critical (rather than spin and training sessions)

5) Publishers earned their keep with a very pro-looking cover and packaging (over-the-top with the promises?) which would park well on your book shelf - alluring to those looking for a catchy title at an airport book stand.

6) If you are looking for a self-help manual to manage your "prima donnas" or a Top 10 List for managing your Clevers, you'll come away sorely disappointed. The book does however make a compelling case for the importance, the rewards and the challenges of managing Clevers. As many of us have found, managing Clevers isn't easy - they need feedback, they need independence, they need recognition, they need support - but not too much.

According to Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, clever people "are the most valuable people the organization has - more valuable than their leaders (more valuable, perhaps, than even the CEO). Or, at least, they have the potential to be more valuable than anyone else." Warren Bennis once suggested that managing people resembles herding cats. Goffee and Jones suggest that managing clever people resembles herding lions and tigers...and perhaps (extending the metaphor to less-experienced but nonetheless high-potential workers) some jaguars, cougars, leopards, and cheetahs as well. Most books and articles I have read about managing talented people suggest that the challenge is to increase their value to the organization. "This book turns that challenge on its head. Clever is concerned with making the organization more valuable to clever people." They go on to suggest that those who manage them are required to recognize and accommodate two realities: "First, there needs to be an appreciation that clever people have a symbiotic relationship with their organizations. They need the sociability, infrastructure, credibility, resources and scale offered by an organization, as much as the organization needs their value-generating power. Second, unleashing the potential of clever people demands a new style of leadership. Leaders can no longer be the sole driving force for progress. They are not the one who leads the charge up the mountain. Rather, they must identify the clever people with the potential to reach the summit, connect with others, and help them get there."

The observations, suggestions, recommendations, and caveats that Goffee and Jones provide within their lively and eloquent narrative are all based on rigorous and extensive research. Their purpose is to help those with clever people entrusted to their care to understand what to do and how to do it, and, what not to be and do as well as why. The substantial upside is that clever people "are highly talented individuals with the potential to create disproportionate amounts of value from the resources that the organization makes available to them." In this context, I am reminded of the animators whom Walt Disney supervised who produced Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi; the physicists whom J. Robert Oppenheimer supervised at Las Alamos; the aeronautical engineers whom Ben Rich and Clarence L. ("Kelly") Johnson supervised at Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs (ADP), better known as the "Skunk Works" and those research scientists whom George Pake and Bob Taylor supervised at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).

Goffee and Jones focus on a number of other supervisors who provided the leadership needed to manage clever people effectively, especially at a time when intellectual capital has become an even more important source of value and when there is an increasing dependence on a small but growing number of clever people. What Goffee and Jones characterize as the "Clever Economy" is not a utopian capitalist idyll. As Tracey Horton told them during an interview, "Highly talented people have the potential to create disproportionate amounts of value. They also have the potential to destroy disproportionate amounts of value." Goffee and Jones identify and discuss a number of common and dominant characteristics of clever people in the first chapter. They suggest to me both the "good news" and the "bad news." For example, they enjoy breaking rules, "suffer heavily from the knowledge-is-power syndrome," resent any review/evaluation process, ask difficult (e.g. politically incorrect) questions, are not impressed by corporate hierarchy, do not want to be led but expect instant access to whomever and whatever they need, and seldom express appreciation. "Even when you are leading them well, clever people may be unwilling to recognize your leadership...Measure your success [as a leader] by your ability to remain on the fringes of their radar. You know you're succeeding when you hear them say you're not getting in the way too much."

There are excellent suggestions about how to lead clever people in Chapter 2. In subsequent chapters, Goffee and Jones shift their attention from leaders and those whom they lead to "Clever Teams" (Chapters 3 and 4) and then "Clever Organizations" (Chapters 5 and 6). I especially appreciate the generous provision of comments by those who have direct and extensive experience with managing clever people. Their observations are based on real-world experience. For example:

"Clever people want to work in an environment of trust. The other thing is, they don't like to be told no. What they respect is if people say no, with an explanation. When it comes to communication from senior management, they are high maintenance. You have to explain more; they don't take yes or no [alone] for an answer." Neil Buckley, ING

"If you go up to these guys and say, `I wish we could do this, but I don't think it's possible!' this is by far and away the best way to motivate them. If I go past and say, `I wish we could do this, but I don't think we can do that, so we're going to have to do this boring thing instead,' in every case, the programmer is up to the task, it's the best way to motivate them. They will spend every waking hour saying, `I bet there is a way to solve it - I know there is a way.' They really enjoy it. It's the thrill of the hunt." Will Wright, EA

The research revealed the reasons why "clever teams regularly screw up." Simply putting clever people does not necessarily make them a team. More often than not, their efforts to collaborate fail. Reasons vary from one Clever Team to the next, of course, but these seem to be the most common causes of problems. First, an inability to agree on common goals. Also, "rarely if ever do they work together interdependently on a shared task." Also, there is almost always "a string drive of clever people to retain their autonomy and independence." Also, clever people tend to become wholly preoccupied with what they are doing...and ignore completely everyone else. Different kinds of Clever Teams encounter somewhat different kinds of problems. Techies have a tendency to be overly specialized and obsessed by their own area of specialization, to the detriment of the team's success. They also have weak interpersonal skills. Members of creative teams can be drawn to novelty at the expense of quality and often do nit see their work in a commercial context. Professional teams (e.g. physicians, attorneys, accountants, and academics) have a tendency to be willfully naughty and can often behave like children. There is also a tendency of professional teams to be "overly concerned or pedantic about setting rules and norms -- something that comes from professional training. Splitting hairs is their modus operandi." Frankly, after reading about all of the different ways that Clever Teams of various kinds have problems, I concluded that managing their members does indeed resemble resembles herding lions and tigers...and doing so while juggling hand grenades in a minefield and wearing a blindfold.

I think this is a "must read" for anyone who has supervisory responsibilities that include managing clever people or who expects to have such responsibilities at some point. To succeed in the Clever Economy, all organizations must not only identify the clever people they need; they must also attract and then retain them with a culture that provides the freedom, the environment, and the necessary discipline they need "to express and develop their talent." To achieve this goal requires a substantial commitment of resources, the most important of which is a quality of leadership that Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones explain thoroughly, indeed brilliantly in this book.

In a world filled with not-so-clever people, Rob Goffee & Gareth Jones have provided us with a book geared towards helping us understand what makes clever people tick; and most importantly, how to get the most out of those clever people, by encouraging them & challenging them to reach greater levels of...being clever.

Typically, most organizations are run by somewhat humorless corporate bureaucracies who think they're clever, but usually are far from it. As a result, the truly clever people in those organizations are usually not noticed or under-appreciated; some are even labeled as malcontents & are driven away by narrow minded supervisors.

Such organizations usually experience less than stellar earnings; some even require bailout money to stay afloat. Naturally, most of the clever people have already jumped ship by that time; and so it goes.

The successful organizations embrace the concept that knowledge is actually a good thing to possess and to nurture; naturally, they go out of their way to engage the cleverest people in the process known as "work".

It's really a very simple concept; common sense tell us that. This wonderful book reinforces that concept with very practical strategies which even a CEO should be able to grasp; if they don't let their egos get in the way.

Clever employees dream up intriguing new products and services, and develop revolutionary processes that catapult their organizations over their competitors. As such, they are crucial to a company's success. However, as consultants Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones explain, leading them can be a huge challenge. Manage them too much, and they will leave and take their brilliant ideas to your competitors. Manage them too little, and they may waste precious corporate resources on impractical activities that do not contribute to your bottom line. In this thoughtful, illuminating book, Goffee and Jones describe how to lead them so they will be happy and so your company will benefit. The authors emphasize that cleverness is not everything society makes it out to be, but that, properly managed, clevers can take your organization to the heights, so you want to nurture them. getAbstract finds that this book shows you how, in the cleverest possible way.

CLEVER: LEADING YOUR SMARTEST, MOST CREATIVE PEOPLE comes from leadership and change experts who comment on the type of smart employee who is a creative thinker utilizing an organization's commercial and financial resources to fill their potential. They can be clever and difficult - and an organization's competitive edge often depends on how they are guided. This set of guidelines for organizing 'clevers' provides thoughtful 'musts' for any business leader or library catering to them.

According to the authors, clever people tend
to create value. They crave organization.
Such people are project oriented, they prefer
flat organizational hierarchies and flexible
organizational policies.

Cleverness may be an identifying marker or
personal characteristic. Ingenuity is not easily
replicated or taught in school. Clever people
ask piercing questions. They are organizationally
savvy. A clever person appreciates easy access.
The best way to manage clever people is to lead
with a light touch and tolerate some error/
experimentation with clearly defined limits.

The book discusses team interdependence between and
amongst members. Individual team members are aware
of each others' strengths, weaknesses and foibles.
Classic teams are tech, creative and professional teams.

A good leader can persuade, use expertise, give people
space or resources and set clear boundaries of operation.
Overall, the book provides some non-traditional perspective
on an experimental management design.

I finished it, but it did not focus as much on the intricacies of clever people as much as how to make clever people play nice in teams. Teamwork, teams, team environment- most of the book talks about these concepts.

Not-So-Clever Scam! If you want your organization to become the world's biggest loser in the war for talent, here is the guidebook to disaster. To anyone who has actually taken the time to read the books on gifted adults and all the research on talent psychology and leadership excellence, it is patently obvious that this is nothing but a destructive repackaging of outdated strategies and last century's stereotypes. Indeed, if the authors had hurled such unfounded insults at any other group of people they would undoubtedly find themselves facing a lawsuit. Readers' heads will ache from being tossed back and forth between two contradictory perspectives. While the authors repeatedly stress the enormous value of bright, creative people in today's organizations (one of the few accuracies in the book), they simultaneously pour scorn on them. As with most forms of prejudice, the writers begin by assigning them a derogatory label: "clevers"!
And if that weren't enough, they go on to belittle them as "recalcitrant", "needy", "obsessive", hostile toward their organizations, "resistant", "incessant interrogators of those who hope to lead them", "organizational innocents", and on and on. If they had looked, they would know there is no credible evidence to support their insults. They go on to depict clever people as a tawdry collection of socially inept narcissists: "Communicating with clevers is always a challenge because they are totally absorbed by their own agendas". Worse yet, indispensable talented people are portrayed as a band of menacing insurgents: "good at gaming", and inclined to "poison a culture very quickly". One of the authors' many uninformed recommendations even warns organizations to "give clever people resources and space"---not in support of their exceptional creativity, but because it is "the only way to prevent them from using their Machiavellian talents to extract what they need". Tragically, the understanding of bright, creative people promised by this book is nowhere to be found. Indeed it is merely a slapdash money-making scheme comprised of opinions glued together by very bad misinformation. Altogether, this book is a prescription for O.D. failure. Anyone who works for an organization that accepts these unfounded, backward views should run for the nearest exit and never look back.