Steve Jobs made this very true statement. I have observed many outsourcing houses and I will tell you one thing. The boss is always a charismatic and innovative genius. But, the workers seem to be a bunch of thoughtless drones. Many bosses don’t want their workers to think. But, for them to do good work and communicate, they need to care about their work and think. They might even need to innovate from time to time.
It’s hard to innovate when you don’t care about your work. The seed of innovation is frustration with the way things are. If you don’t care, or are very tolerant of poor conditions, you won’t be a good innovator. You need to be passionate, stubborn, genius, and driven like Steve Jobs to be good at it.
But, can you teach your workers to be innovators. They have brains that only need to be woken up. And besides, do you really want to be the only person at your company who thinks? Wouldn’t it be nice if there were others at your company who could deal with clients, strategize and make sure things get done? In the real world it doesn’t work this way, but maybe the real world needs to change… I’ll leave you with that thought.