Book Review: Rebel Talent by Francesca Gino

Book Review: Rebel Talent by Francesca Gino

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Rebel Talent is a book by Harvard Business School Professor Francesca Gino. Its subtitle Why it Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life already summarises the main message that the book carries: in many situations breaking (or bending) rules can be positive both at work and in life. Of course, it depends on which rules. And the author goes to a great extent into making a case with many concrete examples from different types of organisations. Some are out of our traditional radar, like the Restaurant Osteria Francescanaof Massimo Bottura. This multi-Michelin star winning chef is not the typical chef you would expect. And becomes one of the leading examples in how “breaking the rules” of traditionalism delivers value through agility and creativity. Who is a Rebel? Rebels are defined as people who are deviants but positively and constructively. They challenge the established norms and assumptions and do things differently from the crowd. Rebels break the rules, not in a legal sense or to get into trouble. They break the rules of steadiness, the assumptions that keep organisations static. These …

Build Your Skill: Resilience

Build your Skills: Resilience

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Resilience is one of the topics that has been “hot” in the recent HR Congress I attended in Nice. Technically it is challenging to define Resilience as a Skill, as it is something more complicated than a pure competence. Many different factors dial in creating Resilience, and I want to dedicate some time to give some glimpses on this. Resilience: a Definition In simple words, Resilience is the ability of a person to adapt to changing circumstances and to bounce back from challenges and stress. In other words, Resilience is the ‘rubber ball’ factor: the ability to bounce back in the event of adversity. A resilient person has the ability to cope with and rise to the inevitable challenges, problems and set-backs met in the course of life, getting strengthened from these. Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good Elizabeth Edwards, …

Build your Skills: Authenticity

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(Note: I wrote this article initially on October 28, 2018, under the title Strive for Authenticity. Its content fits very well with the series on Build Your Skills and Prepare for the Future of Work. Thus I have changed this title and revamped the post for consistency) Last year a colleague asked me which one of the Guiding Principles that VF has chosen is more important for me. I think it’s difficult to pick between a set of core values that all relate to what I believe “good business” should be about. Live with Integrity resonates a lot to me, also because a big part of my personal and professional journey has been marked by an active internal (and sometimes openly external) conversation about the meaning itself of what Integrity means. Let’s cut it short. For me, Integrity is not about merely respecting the rules. Since the beginning of my career, all the managers I’ve had understood that I’ve always been a “challenger” of status quo rules. The question is, of course, which rules you can or cannot challenge. And to make sure these …