Page 207 - Free the Idea Monkey

Much has been written about leaders

who had a vision or a dream and, through In the book What Happy
blood, sweat and tears, made their dream People Know, author
a reality. Successful entrepreneurs like Dan Baker describes an
Ford, Jobs and Dell moved beyond declar- optimist as “a person
ing and got busy doing. In the course of who believes some-
their journey, lots and lots of people were thing positive is going
fired because they did not or could not to come from even the
believe. It may have manifested itself as most brutal experi-
poor work performance, but at the heart of ence.” I love this defi-
the matter they just didn’t believe enough nition. Unfortunately, it
in the vision to make it happen. puts a spotlight on how
so many Monkeys fail:
I once had a business friend tell me he they look at a bearish
had completely transformed the culture teammate as a poten-
of his company. He said that they now tial positive outcome
had one of the most happy, engaged and rather than what he is:
productive organizations he had ever run. a liability.
When I asked him how he had created
such a culture, his response was simple:

“I fired all the unhappy people.”

This book has utilized a whole bunch of ink to get across how

critical optimism, gratefulness and sense of wonder are to the Idea

Monkey and to the inventive organization. But the most inventive

people and organizations understand something else, something that

you must as well. They are ruthless when it comes to nonbelievers.

They don’t put up with them, and if you want to be successful, you

can’t either.

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