Bronwyn Fryer wrote an interesting article in the Harvard Business Review blog titled “Wanted: Idea Fusers”. She uses examples such as Steve Jobs (everyone’s favorite example) and his fusion of calligraphy and technology in creating the Macintosh user interface.
In the closing paragraph, Fryer issues a challenge:
Now, take a good look at the people your company hires. Do they come from all kinds of different backgrounds and experiences? My guess is that there may be a diversity policy on the books, and that there are people of different genders and races. But we need more diversity than that. We need much more intellectual diversity, and we need to find ways to put unlike ideas together in new ways.
Connecting the dots here, I thought of my own family. One of the things I always admired about my wife is how she encouraged our children to be self-sufficient and find their own way at a very early age. They learned to make their own meals, do their own chores MUCH earlier in life than I would have expected. I remember our youngest filling a pot of water and putting it on the stove to make tortellini when he couldn’t even see the top of the stove!
When the kids were frustrated, she would say “Use your words”. When they were punished for some disgression, they would not be allowed out of “time-out” until they could present a ‘plan’ for how they would act in the future when faced with a similar situation.
I was more old school, resorting to “… because I SAID SO!” as a reason way too often.
Our children became independent thinkers, unafraid to present what we now call ‘out-of-the-box’ solutions. All three of our children turned out to be great adults.
Ms. Fryer is really on to something with her comments. Most organization do NOT gravitate toward people who think differently.
Our children took different educational paths when we moved to Cincinnati from Boston. Our middle child started 1st grade in the local public elementary school, and followed the public school path through high school, the youngest was in Catholic school from Kindergarten on. Regardless of the school choice, the boys (not as socially adept as their big sister) were sometimes a ‘challenge’ to the elementary school environment, due to their out-of-the-box independent thinking. In both cases there were teachers along the way that saw their potential and nurtured it, but I sometimes wonder, what if my wife and I were BOTH “because I said so” parents? What if our children’s educational experience had not included those teachers that saw their true value?
I think the same applies to business organizations. We naturally gravitate towards people who think and act like us. Free thinkers can be a burden. They can be disruptive. They’re not like us…
I believe that it’s a rare organization that can foster free thinking and idea fusing and survive over time. Eventually the success of the free thinking culture is challenged by market forces, and management brings in a ‘proven leader’ to whip the organization into shape. Think Apple during Steve Jobs ‘hiatus’. The non-conformists desert, the company becomes another nameless, faceless organization and another ‘idea fusing’ start up kicks them out of the limelight. What would Apple look like today if Steve Jobs had not returned?
It’s not enough to find idea fusers, you need to be able to foster their growth and understand that not all fused ideas will be winners. It will be a wild ride, but definitely worth the journey!
– RTR
Real Time Rick 
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