The tricky art of harnessing employee talent and encouraging a creative work environment while keeping an organization focused and maintaining discipline is one test of an effective manager. This is especially true in technology-intensive businesses, utterly dependent on novel, pattern-breaking innovation. What follows is the first of a series of three postings that touch on this important topic.
Introduction
How individual talent is mobilized for the enterprise’s collective good is critical to business success. However, employees vary in their allegiance to business goals and processes. While most company staff members are at least nominally respectful of business process and habit, organizations also have mavericks unconcerned with allegiance to corporate culture.
Central to this discussion is that mavericks must add significant value to the company; though they may flout rules, their activities must ultimately lead to significant improvements in the firm’s products or processes. Otherwise, they are simply difficult employees who may be terminated. Thus, the organization needs to weigh the worth that a maverick adds (e.g. patents filed, research breakthroughs, new products developed ahead of schedule and under budget) with the disruption that they cause.
While not all mavericks are inherently creative and productive, innovation may well require breaking with past practice and ignoring paradigms, so some exceptional staff may well demonstrate maverick behavior. Balancing the challenges of tolerating – perhaps sometimes encouraging – nonconformity with the benefits of innovation resulting from that nonconformity is a topic that subsequent postings will tackle.
I write modern fantasy novels that are hopefully both exciting and literate. These novels include an on-going series about a near-immortal magician who grew up in Camelot and grew famous in San Francisco's 'Summer of Love'. He's still having adventures to this day described in The Lords of the Summer Season, The Lords of Powder, and The Lords of Oblivion. The books can be read in any order.
As author S Alessandro Martinez has stated about the series:
"Lords of Oblivion
A 1500-year-old wizard. A pair of savage druids raised from the dead. Modern day San Francisco. A wolf that takes no gruff. Blaisdell creates a fascinating world in this magical realism novel with smart writing, complex characters, and clever use of history and mythology. I was sucked in from the very beginning. I look forward to more of Bradan and Tintagel's mystical adventures.
Lords of Powder
Merlin's former apprentice, Bradan, is back! The 1500-year-old wizard, who is sometimes too smart for his own good, returns for another exciting adventure, this time in 70s Miami as he takes on the criminal world of drug trafficking. Blaisdell's smart, fast-paced writing and use of fascinating history and mythology keeps you on the edge of your seat as Bradan uses his wits, charm, and illusions to navigate the modern era and get himself into plenty of trouble.
Lords of the Summer Season
Being Merlin's former apprentice and living for 1500 years is bound to make you a few enemies. Travel back to the 60s with Bradan the wizard and his otherworldly wolf Tintagel. As Bradan juggles careers as a professor and musician, he must defend himself from his greatest threat yet: a literal god. Blaisdell continues with his clever, skillful, and imaginative writing that will keep readers eagerly turning the next page. My favorite of the Bradan books, Blaisdell dives deeper into the Arthur mythology, and brings the reader even more elements of magic and folklore, all the while weaving an entertaining tale of gods, wizards, ghosts, and 60s acid rock. Thoroughly enjoyable!"
Besides the literary side of my life, my background includes membership on a scientific advisory board for a non-profit professional organization promoting the biomedical and digital health business community in the greater Los Angeles area.
I’ve authored both basic research publications and business management articles focusing on the bio/pharma industry. My Ph.D. is in Biochemistry from the University of Minnesota where I also conducted post-doctoral research in microbiology. And my BS is from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) with a double major in chemistry and cell biology.
View all posts by Peter Blaisdell
Managing Research in Technology Firms 