Robert Niles on Creative Insubordination

"Successful entrepreneurs bring something new to the market, whether it be a new product, new approach or simply a new promotion. They challenge existing market options. They are, therefore, by definition, not "team players," but team challengers, destabilizers or ever destroyers.

But when technology upsets monopolies or oligopolies, as the Web did with local information markets, those established businesses need a healthy does of creative insubordination, to help them learn how to compete.

Unfortunately, most successful institutions became successful because they evolved to employ and promote individuals who did things the corporate way. Market changes, unfortunately for them, is Darwin's revenge. The workplace natural selection process that made great corporate employees leaves the organization unlikely to accommodate, much less promote, the very people the organization will need to adapt to the change, and survive."