Companies like Google have turned classic work management style on its head, by allowing their engineers 20% of company time to devote on their own creative work. This is weird idea to most companies.

Stanford professor Robert I. Sutton wrote a book on how to manage for maximum creativity called Weird Ideas That Work. Sutton concluded that what is right for routine work is consistently wrong for creative work.

Here are 5 Weird Rules That Boost Creativity:

1. Find some happy people and get them to fight.
   Invite team members to dissect an idea. This is a sure fire way to expose flaws.
2. Reward success and failure; punish inaction.
   This is like Seth Godin’s “just ship” philosophy. Activity level should be the gauge of performance.
3. Ignore people who have solved the exact problem you face.
   Give a project to an unlikely team member, and you might find a new way of doing it.
4. Hire “slow learners” (of organizational code).
   Find people who are confident enough to stray away from the herd.
5. Seek out ways to avoid, distract, and bore customers.
   This will narrow your path that leads to the opposite outcome.

Sutton’s “Weird Rules” are a reminder that one of the best strategies for inciting creativity is to upend the status quo.

I dream of working for a status quo bender and breaker.

Share with us some of your “Weird Rules”!

[via 99%]