HBR: "Leading Clever People"

This month's Harvard Business Review contains an apt and timely article, "Leading Clever People." Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones define clever people as "the handful of employees whose ideas, knowledge, and skills give them the potential to produce disproportionate value from the resources their organizations make available to them." Still, this doesn't mean that they're better off working on their own. One of the people they quoted, the head of development for a global accounting firm, stated that clever people "can be sources of great ideas, but unless they have systems and discipline they may deliver very little."

One good point they made about managing clever folks is the importance of demonstrating that you're an expert in your own right. This is to establish credibility and respect. At the same time, one mustn't be so above-and-beyond or in-your-face so as to discourage the real talent.

Read "Leading Clever People" at HBR. You may have to view an ad.

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