Saturday, April 28, 2007

Eccentrics and the Slush Pile

I like eccentrics.

Put me in a conference room filled with corporate types and I'll usually gravitate toward the people in the corners who are not on the fast track.

This is not always wise nor is it fair. The fast track usually has some pretty decent and thoughtful people and there are many self-styled eccentrics who embrace that term rather than a more accurate one: "jerk."

The gravitation, however, is driven by two forces: an aversion to smugness and a belief that organizations often consign some of their most interesting thinkers to the fringes. The talent market within organizations usually operates fairly efficiently but, like the market outside, it can sometimes miss by a wide margin. Most of us have heard of how Moby Dick was poorly received in the early years or how many times Animal Farm was rejected by publishers. One publisher advised mystery writer Tony Hillerman that his book proposal would make a good story if he'd just remove the stuff about Indians.

Most major book publishers no longer accept unsolicited manuscripts because it takes too much time for a junior editor to find decent material in what has been called the "slush pile." That task has been outsourced to literary agents and a writer without an agent is at a real disadvantage.

It is easy to understand that business decision. All in all, it's a wise one. But rather than placing such faith in that process, it might be even better to permit a slush pile that could be given a random and partial examination just to see how good a job the agents are doing.


The same approach can be applied to ideas in organizations. There are people who are consigned to a slush pile that is seldom or never considered. Many are simply eccentric but others are both eccentric and talented. Going beyond the normal channels can lead to some surprising discoveries.

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