Book review: Clever: Leading Your Smartest, Most Creative People
 Book author: Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Australia
It’s the old 80:20 rule. Twenty per cent of an organisation’s people will contribute to 80% of its bottom line. They’re the ones who invent new product lines, identify new markets, anticipate global changes and radically streamline costs.
In Clever, Rob Goffe (a Professor of Organisational Behaviour) and Gareth Jones (a Management Development expert) define these 20% as the clever people who organisations cannot afford to lose.
From the start, they are clear that these clever people are not necessarily academically qualified, or even carrying a resume packed with experience. Nor are they rogues who work alone outside of organisations. Goffe and Jones are concerned with the clever people who actually need organisations to thrive in, despite often cutting against the grain.
Clever presents a thoroughly researched and well argued model for how leaders can help these, at times irregular – even oddball – people thrive in organisations.
But instead of placing the onus of change on the clever person – who some may argue need to tame their rogue instincts to fit into the organisational culture – the authors argue that organisations need to learn how to become more valuable to clever people – to retain them and give them the space to thrive.
As a reader, I was both surprised and pleased to learn that Goffe and Jones do not shy away from a strong theoretical grounding in their research. Working from their sociological backgrounds, they argue against Max Weber’s assertion that bureaucracy is the defining feature of modern organisations.
Rather, improved bureaucracy only leads to increased efficiency, not necessarily improved effectiveness. More so, bureaucracy merely maintains the status quo of existing systems.
To Goffe and Jones, organisations need to maintain a moral and ethical agenda. Doing things right is only half the equation: they also need to do the right thing in the world in the service of a better society for all.
From this strong theoretical basis, Goffe and Jones set out to summarise their extensive field research. Clever is replete with detailed interviews with leaders and clever people from diverse organisations.
The authors speak with Will Wright, the computer programmer behind SimCity, one of the most innovative and successful games of all time. They discover that people like Will have a symbiotic relationship with their organisation. Each needs the other to thrive.
Aside from giving them the resources to succeed – in Will’s case an army of bright programmers – organisations give clever people a safe and contained space in which to nurture ideas.
As for the leaders, they require some traditional leadership skills in managing clever people, such as excellent communication skills and authenticity.
But they also require some additional skills. Leaders need to guide and focus them, but often day-to-day managing is impossible, as clever people resist being directed at that level.
At the more macro level, organisations need to articulate and make explicit the way they nurture clever people. The authors talk to Christina Kite, who manages a $5 billion real estate port, despite having no real estate background.
Christina Kite’s success is testimony to the point that organisations need to take risks on clever people, understanding that the best person for the job may not have the required training, but does have the nous, wisdom and even élan to succeed.
More so, as Christina articulates in her interview with the authors, organisations are increasingly finding the need to rely on people with cross-disciplinary skill-sets. Whilst some clever people are niche specialists, others are often those who can marry ideas from disparate fields in service of innovation.
Clever is an outstanding example of how theory and field research can produce a book that is at once intellectually rigorous and feasibly practical.
People who lead large teams – as well as those who identify clever people in their teams – will certainly benefit from taking the time to read this book from back to front.
Our rating: 10/10
By Ben Zipper, Co-editor, Women & Leadership Australia eNewsletter
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