I’ve been involved in strategic planning for a long time. I’ve got a suggestion for Meralco’s corporate planning folks:
Go find this person and hire her. Passionately creative thinkers are hard to come by.
The fringe is important. Right there is where you will find the sources of your strategic advantages.
John Hagel III and John Seely Brown talk about “Productive Friction” in their book The Only Sustainable Edge:
Productive friction requires difficult negotiations among people with very different skills, experiences, and mind-sets.
If you’re hiring all top-notchers, MBAs from the very best schools, you’re probably not mobilizing the best mix of people with relevant specializations or perspectives for identifying your future markets.
Christopher Locke, in his groundbreaking book presaging our current tech environment, Gonzo Marketing writes:
Where professionals are cool and analytic, beginners and dilettantes often see things more clearly — and care more deeply about what they see.
The more people care, the more they are willing to risk. Concern, passion, shock, outrage: all tend to inspire engaged, audacious, imaginative speech. And such speech has true voice, the power to compel attention.
Ah .. the power to compel attention. Now I’ll bet that’s the kind of person you’re looking for.