Friday, March 16, 2007

Leading Clever People - More from HBR

What I enjoy most is getting the chance to go out and play with the smart kids, and here's an HBR article Leading Clever People by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones (both profs at London Business school) that talk about how a manager goes about leading a team of rockstars. Examples touched on in the article include Genentech/Roche, Google, and Microsoft, amongst others.

The idea that rockstars are somehow different than others is all motherhood and apple pie (my new expression for the week), but the article gives solid suggestions on just how these folks are different, and how to manage them.

If you try to push your clever people, you will end up driving them away. As many leaders of highly creative people have learned, you need to be a benevolent guardian rather than a traditional boss.
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