I just finished reading this (http://bit.ly/bFq2uT) article in the Financial Times about a retired Nasa astronaut now working at Google. The article describes how Ed Lu joined with no clear job description and goes on to exhibit how “people with cross-disciplinary skills can prove invaluable. Though they don’t fit into any particular role, they can enrich the company culture, and uncover new business opportunities.”
Most companies are created with a focus on a core field in which they can carve out a niche. They hire specialists and zero in on their domain until one day the company is full of experts with similar perspectives and restricted approaches to problems. For a company who depends on innovation, such a stale environment is detrimental. Google’s recruitment of Ed Lu shows their aversion to this hackneyed approach and their commitment to what Frans Johansson calls “The Medici Effect“. The Medicis were a banking family who ruled Florence and brought sculptors, painters, architects, poets and the like to the city and funded their craft. This melding of creative minds fostered new ideas and spurred what we know today as the Renaissance.
To many, hiring someone outside the company’s area of expertise seems counterintuitive but when we look at some of the most innovative companies – who many wish to emulate – they are also the most diverse.
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