Want to add value to your bottom-line quickly?…Hire a Heretic!

In Art Kleiner’s book titled: The Age of Heretics , Kleiner‘s definition of a

heretic as: “a visionary who creates change in large-scale companies balancing
contrary truths they can’t deny against their loyalty to their organizations.”He
discusses how managers get stuck into a rut and need heretics to point out new
points of view to get past the deadlock and move forward. Later he describes some
as “rebels unwilling to kowtow to the corporate bureaucracy.”

One example of a heretic (and there are many in the book) is Jack Welch who gained
a reputation as he climbed the ladder at GE as “ignoring or pushing back against,
the bureaucratic strictures of his parent corporation.”

In Art Petty’s recent post this week titled : Help Wanted: Visionaries and
Dreamer-Safe Return Doubtful Art refers to individuals who create great works of
art on a blank canvas, they run towards adventure instead of away from it. Art
goes on to say how we should channel our inner-Shackleton,(after the leader and
explorer Ernest Shackleton ) and provides four lessons that apply to the
adventurers called Heretics today. It reminded me that some people are cut out for
adventure and some are not.

Having played the role of heretic in most of the companies I have served, let me
tell you what to expect if you have the guts to hire one. A heretic is someone who
will not take the easy road agreeing with key influencers throughout your
organization. Obviously if what your key influencers are saying and or doing is in
alignment with market needs they will, but if they hear something that is
inconsistent with the vision of the organization or market needs they will tell
you. Team members may feel this is a lack of loyalty. However to the contrary a
heretic is singularly focused and loyal to one objective and that is adding
bottom-line value to the team he serves, to aligning the organization to win
profitably in their market. They will tell the CEO for example that his recent
directive to the troops is not in alignment with market needs nor the core values
and mission of the organization. He will remind the CEO that the mission statement
is as much about what you will not do as much as what you will focus on.

A heretic does not know, or more importantly does not care, your VP of Marketing
is your sister in law. He does not know or care that your VP of Sales was your
fraternity brother at Ohio State, but he will tell you if that VP is not
demonstrating the ability to lead his team in a direction aligned with market
needs and your vision. A heretic will come into your organization and ask a lot of
questions. Some of his questions will make you uncomfortable and definitely rock
the foundations of some silos that have built throughout your organization. How
will you as the leader of your organization know? You will recognize incoming
torpedoes when you see them. If key influencers and leaders in your organization
start using their relationship with you to shoot torpedoes at “the new guy” you
know he’s asking uncomfortable questions.

The heretic will then want to spend a great deal of time in your market finding
what he does not know. They may ride along with sales people, and often may engage
with your customers on their own…LET THEM! Sales will balk, marketing will object,
finance may say it’s too expensive, but let him dive into your market asking
questions. What you will find if you shadow him ( and I strongly encourage CEO’s
to do so) is he has an innate ability to make people feel comfortable and get
customers talking. When you listen to him you will hear open ended questions, not
questions to validate a current corporate understanding. He will seek to get to
“why’s” much more that “what” and he really does not care about “who” . Who did
that? Who said that?…He’s not out to find who did things wrong, but he seeks to
gain an understanding of the market and its problems.

After spending time in your various departments, (and I should mention he will not
just speak with leaders, but every level throughout the team) and spending time in
your market with customers, non customers and market influencers… the fun begins.

The easy part is they will share with you what you are doing well, but not in his
opinion, but the voice of the markets’. He will also share gaps, misalignments
like poor positioning, branding, or a lack of sales tools to support the buying
process he observed. He may hold your customer service or quality department’s
feet to the fire over interruptions he found in speaking with your team and your
market.

Heretics reshape organizations to be market focused and thus the organizations

become market leaders. Market leading companies are over 30% more profitable, grow
faster, have higher customer satisfaction and higher morale.Their radical thinking
throughout history has reshaped corporate management ( and our society) as we know
it today, and they will create the market leading organizations of tomorrow.

So how about your organization, how do you know if you need to hire a heretic?

1. Lack of EBITDA growth

2. Your leaders speak in terms like “I think” verse sharing authentic market
feedback and data

3. No one on your team challenges you as the leader

4. Your team has many meetings but you do not discuss topics that matter

5. Your salespeople sell your product or service like it is a commodity

6. The last two product launches failed to meet ROI projections

7. Your salespeople are creating their own sales tools

8. Your leadership team spends more time covering their own butts that talking
about growing your business

9. If you are on your third advertizing firm in 18 months

10. If you answered a question with something like; “because that’s the way do
things here…” in the last three months

11. If your competitor just released something that seems to “be selling itself”
instead of your team introducing it

12. If the distribution of marketing funds to various vehicles like; print, web,
trade shows, direct, social media, has not changed in the last 12 months

13. If reading this post made you feel uncomfortable

What are some other signs that companies should intentionally hire a heretic?
How would a heretic be received in your organization?

As the CEO, what’s more important …increasing the economic value of the
corporation, or being the one who has all the answers?

Mark Allen Roberts

www.outbsolutions.com