The short 2014 book Rebels at Work by Lois Kelly and Carmen Medina is optimistic and supportive. Its thesis is that organizations, even the largest ones, can benefit from change and innovation led from within by "rebels" — and that those "rebels" can maximize their impact by working in a passionate, positive, mission-oriented way rather than by fighting the System. Yes!

Alas, however, the book displays a curious blind-spot: there's nary a mention of how to recognize, catalyze, and promote other people's great ideas. All the emphasis of Rebels is on effective promotion of one's own suggestions, on overcoming higher-level obstacles, and on recruiting peer-supporters. Surely, once in a while, somebody else thinks of something worthy?

Perhaps a sequel about true Rebel Collaboration and how to build it? With appropriate semi-quantitative rigor, statistical evidence, and models of organizational change and the feedback loops and time delays typically entailed? And rebellion as an emergent phenomenon in a complex adaptive system? Hmmmmm!

(cf Taiji at Work (2015-06-29), 2019-11-07 - Within the System, For the System, With the System, ...) - ^z - 2020-01-15