The rebel rules

Passion fuels business rebels, driving them towards realizing their vision. Passionate leaders build great work climates filled with people inspired by the vision and committed to doing whatever it takes to achieve it. These rebel businesses treat their work climate as a brand, cultivating an environment centered on working hard and playing hard with enthusiasm. Their climate stems from a shared quest to realize the vision.

Rebel workplaces produce dreamers who believe they can defy conventional wisdom. Thus, a rebel workplace becomes integral to their brand identity projected to the world, not just a place of business. A key trait of passionate rebel leaders is encouraging engagement, not conformity. They achieve this in various ways: One person often emerges as a cultural figurehead and guardian, like the founder, president, colorful personality, or someone embodying the company's ethos (e.g., Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines).

Human Resources shifts from rule-making to strengthening culture, even renaming itself the People or Employee Development Department. A cultural development program like corporate university courses, recognition certificates, quarterly awards for exemplary attitudes and behaviors, or motivational programs where high producers get Harley Davidsons or BMW leases.

Business rebels possess an innate instinct that allows them to cut through complexities and address the key challenges and opportunities that ultimately determine success or failure. Unlike traditional companies focused on what they already know, rebel organizations emphasize the desire to constantly learn more. Knowledge is important, but the ability to apply knowledge - intelligence - is even more vital. That's where business instincts come into play. Savvy rebel companies are continuously learning by questioning assumptions, seeking growth, and reveling in improvement.

For rebels, instinct means knowing when to defy conventional wisdom and when not to. While such intuition can't be taught, it starts with knowledge - thus rebels intensely seek to learn at all hours. Specifically, they build an in-house database of practical expertise by embracing open-book management so everyone understands company dynamics. They encourage scenario planning to imagine the future. They utilize real-time dashboards to communicate granular revenue, goal, complaint and other data to empower all employees to participate in the business. Rebels implement world-class training like corporate universities, intensive benchmarking to consistently measure and improve, and opportunities like brainstorming sessions for people to share knowledge across departments. They pay attention to fresh perspectives from new hires.

Business rebels have an inherent bias toward action and achieving concrete results. They are perfectly willing to change direction, improvise solutions, set priorities, and adapt as needed - as long as they are making progress toward realizing their vision. This agility and focus on getting things done provides the balance that serves as the foundation for everything a rebel tries to accomplish. Without balance, no amount of vision, passion, or instinct will successfully come together. Balance ensures the proper foundations are established first.

Agility gives business rebels the balance and maneuverability they need. Without agility, vision, passion, and instinct amount to little. Agility directs where the momentum created by those other traits should be applied for maximum impact. Traditionally, business was characterized by a clash of titans - huge corporations competing head-to-head. Today's business landscape is quite different. The companies that thrive are those that can react most swiftly to competitors' actions and shifts in customer needs. In that kind of environment, the business rebel's agility becomes highly valuable.

Rebels promote organizational agility in a number of ways. They celebrate failures as imperfect solutions to problems worth solving. They create internal "temp agencies" - a core of cross-trained people who can step into any role at a moment's notice to meet customer demand. They cultivate flat organizational structures with minimal management layers between frontline staff, customers, and senior leaders. They intently listen to what suppliers, partners, and allies try to tell them. They take business models that worked in one industry and apply them to entirely new sectors. They task two separate teams with developing long-term strategies independently, then compare the pros and cons of each to arrive at superior hybrid plans. They directly engage dissatisfied customers to uncover issues needing attention.