HBR Guide to Unlocking Creativity

CHAPTER 23

Build a Culture of Originality

by Adam Grant

If there’s one place on earth where originality goes to die, I’d managed to find it. I was charged with unleashing innovation and change in the ultimate bastion of bureaucracy. It was a place where people accepted defaults without question, followed rules without explanation, and clung to traditions and technologies long after they’d become obsolete: the U.S. Navy.

But in a matter of months, the navy was exploding with originality—and not because of anything I’d done. It launched a major innovation task force and helped form a Department of Defense outpost in Silicon Valley to get up to speed on cutting-edge technology. Surprisingly, these changes didn’t come from the top of the navy’s command-and-control ...