New Book: Clever - Leading Your Smartest, Most Creative People | Latest press releases | PressGo

How to lead your brightest employees in a era when you can least afford to lose them.

The architects responsible for today’s global financial recession were once considered among the most skilled, talented, well downright clever, people on the planet, right?

Right – so what went wrong? In CLEVER: Leading your Smartest, Most Creative People (September 1, 2009; Harvard Business Press; £19.99 256 pages ISBN: 978-1422122969) authors Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones argue that overseeing “clever people” demands an untraditional and nuanced new rulebook of leadership, both to feed and maintain first-rate employees during today’s talent wars, and increase value to their organizations. Instead of companies asking themselves, “How do we make our employees more valuable to our business?” – they should instead be wondering: “How can we increase the value of our organizations to our cleverest employees?”

We all know a “Clever” when we see one – a highly-motivated worker characterized by brains, passion, perfectionism and very often a strong distaste for being told what to do. While averse to being led, these “Clevers” are at the same time highly dependent on both their teams and organizations, whether it’s a software programmer who comes up with a game-changing new code, as Will Wright did with The Sims at Entertainment Arts; a fashion rebel who became a household name, like Marc Jacobs at LVMH; or a renowned designer like Jonathan Ive, who created the Apple iMac and iPhone; or countless lesser-known examples.

The jury’s been out on how to lead “Clevers” respectfully but responsibly. Until now.

If companies want to remain competitive, they’ll have to learn to collaborate, synthesize and give their best and brightest employees the resources and room they need to succeed – or else risk losing them.

For leaders, Goffee and Jones serve up some must-read do’s and don'ts. Among them:
• Do Listen and Talk. Don’t explain or persuade.
• Do use hierarchical expertise. Don’t use hierarchical power.
• Do give space and resources. Don’t hem your employees in.
• Do tell your employees what. Don’t tell them how.
• Do encourage failure. Don’t minimize learning.

Goffee and Jones then explore the winning ideologies of global companies who’ve managed to finesse the delicate push-me-pull-you between diversity and cohesion, autonomy and interdependence, discipline and serendipity. They also envisage the future of clever organizations – and give prescriptions to today’s businesses and organizations on how to become fit for the challenges of our future “Clever Economy.”

Engaging, compact, highly readable and drawing on vivid real-life examples from global companies as diverse as Cisco, Google, LVHM, McLaren and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Goffee’s and Jones’s Clever rewrites the rulebook of how leaders and organizations can remain resourceful, flexible and competitive in today’s and tomorrow’s “Clever Economy.”
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To schedule an interview with Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, or for additional information and materials, please contact: Sue Blake on 0208 979 5220, sue@sueblakemedia.co.uk

Notes to Editors
Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones are Europe's leading experts on organisational culture, leadership and change.

They are past winners of the prestigious McKinsey Award for the best article in the Harvard Business Review, entitled, "Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?" The huge interest it generated led to a five year journey exploring authentic leadership. Their book of the same title was the culmination of that research, and was published by Harvard Business School Press in 2006.

Rob Goffee is Professor of Organizational Behavior at London Business School, where he teaches on the world renowned Senior Executive Program. An internationally respected teacher and facilitator, Rob has taught executives from some of the world's leading companies, including Nestlé, LVMH, Roche and Arup. He also consults to the boards of a number of FTSE 100 companies.

Gareth Jones is a fellow of the Centre for Management Development at London Business School; and a visiting professor at Spain’s IE Business School in Madrid. In a career that has uniquely spanned both the academic and business worlds, Gareth was director of human resources and internal communications at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC); and at Polygram, then the world's largest recorded music company, he was senior vice president for global human resources. Gareth has worked extensively in high-tech companies like Cisco, in professional services notably with PwC, and widely in the creative industries.

Rob and Gareth are the authors of The Character of a Corporation (1998) and Why Should Anyone Be Led By You? (2006). They are the founding partners of Creative Management Associates, a consultancy focused on organizations where creativity is a source of competitive strength.