Are you fed up with the status quo? Or are you like most everyone else and just go along with what is? Mavericks, misfits, rebels, renegades, trouble makers, whatever you want call us; we get a bad rap. We are seen as the enemy of stability because we’re not afraid to shake things up; and most of the times shaking things up is what’s fun for us.

The leaders of organizations are, for the most part, there to create stability. But their job as leaders is to drive innovation for today and tomorrow. They don’t achieve this by playing it safe, nor by sticking with the tried and true. Remember, success breeds failure. The main reason organizations, and people, fail is because they miss the future. They’re always reacting. Why is that? They get stuck in a mental model of how their world works. Basically, a lot of it has to do with this principle: where all think alike nobody thinks very much.

Said another way, homogeinity breeds failure. The way this looks is the people in an organization never changed their mind. With that said, one of most useful habits you can develop is the willingness to change your own mind.

How do you do this?

One way is to hang out, surround yourself, with people who naturally have this habit. Mavericks are stubborn, but they are willingly change their mind. If anything, they’re looking for new knowledge all the time because they’re intensely curious about everything.

Another thing is mavericks are not just in it for the intellectual stimulation, they want to change things for the better. Mavericks don’t wait for things to happen, they make them happen.

So, to summarize here are a few reasons why you should support and embrace mavericks:

1. Most people bitch about work and life. Mavericks don’t bitch, they take action.
2. Innovation is the opposite of safe; it’s challenging, messy and risky. Mavericks head in the direction of chaos with curiosity, not fear.
3. Innovation often begins with frustration. Mavericks believe everything can be improved and they don’t want to wait until it’s too late.
4. Many organizations simply talk about innovation but fail to do the walk. This is called innovation theatre. You have to embrace mavericks to move beyond this; you’re sabotaging your innovation efforts if you don’t.
5. Diversity of thinking breeds innovation.

Bottom line: Embrace weird if you want to find the next revolution.