Rebel Rules Daring to Be Yourself in Business

Introduction: The New Rules of BusinessWith unsettling speed, two powerful forces areconverging: a new generation of leaders is coming topower in the business world, and a group of "fastcompanies" is rewriting the rules of doing businessaround the world. The result: a revolution as far-reachingas the Industrial Revolution 100 years ago.--Fast CompanymagazineA generation ago, rebels staged sit-ins and set their bras aflame. Today rebels create start-ups and light their companies on fire. We live in a time of rapid change. Today's business leaders do not try to anticipate the future. They create it. The ones who build the right model become billionaires.A changing world demands daring, break-all-the-rules leaders. The Industrial Revolution took nearly a half-century to mature and was based upon increasing "muscle power" by forty- or fiftyfold. Today's digital revolution is happening virtually overnight and in magnitudes of a millionfold. The effect of this change is pervasive. We're all touched by it.Maybe that's why rebel entrepreneurs have become the world's business folk heroes: they are a barometer to our brighter future. Personified by pop icons like Richard Branson, today's business success stories are high-profile rebels, authentic and courageous initiators of change. Their companies are a direct extension of who they are. Ironically, these nonconformists provide us comfort and hope: be yourself and you'll be a success. Never before has the business world experienced such a universal quest for originality and such a disdain for the status quo. AsBOBOS in Paradiseauthor David Brooks writes, "It's Lucent Technologies that adopted the slogan 'Born to Be Wild.' It's Burger King that tells America, 'Sometimes You Gotta Break the Rules.'"REBELS RULE WITH COURAGE AND AUTHENTICITYThe day I began writing this book, I found under my computer monitor an old postcard of James Dean, a forty-year-old poster child for disaffection, apathy, and danger. James Dean: the "rebel without a cause."For me, though, the business rebel succeeds because of an obsessionwitha cause. While many shaggy new business leaders of this digital era may look like a James Dean character or sport a disaffected-youth image, their impatience and determination are fueled by a contrarian concept or cause -- often a simple desire to beat the big guys.While the money being made on stock options are the gravy, what inspires these rebels isn't usually money. It's the need to prove themselves, the sense of mission in their product or concept, the desire to experiment, and their love of the work itself. Today's Internet generation has learned that there is no better place to make an impact than in the business world.Professor Frank Farley at Temple University calls these rebels the "Type-T Personality," those thrill-seekers who are willing to take risks to test their limits. They're drawn to challenges, paradoxes, and new ideas. They break rules, resist authority, and can't stand calm. They're some of our best-known entrepreneurs -- and some of our most feared sociopaths. How can you tell the difference?The litmus test for rebels is whether they are courageous and authentic, whether they stand their ground against the voice of conventional wisdom. Like Bob Pittman, president of America Online, who helped create MTV at a time when everyone said, "Music is meant to be heard, not seen." Or Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who while barely of legal drinking age founded the modern version of the personal computer after the experts at Xerox said there wasn't a market for such a contraption. Like Anita Roddick of The Body Shop, rebels wear their values on their sleeves and use their companies as a vehicle for change.Rebels stage revolutions, internally and externally. The greatest rebels are those who have completely changed theirConley, Chip is the author of 'Rebel Rules Daring to Be Yourself in Business' with ISBN 9780684865164 and ISBN 0684865165.