“Clever,” by Rob Goffee & Gareth Jones

Reviewed By: Magan Jenkins

Many successful organizations are made up of skilled workers who specialize in areas important to that business and work toward an ultimate goal. Hierarchies form in these organizations starting with those who lead and those who are led. Leaders determine the most efficient way to lead their followers to achieve the goal at hand. However, how do you lead people who think differently from the traditional way of working? “Clever,” by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, examines how to lead the unique worker who possesses resourceful skills and talents and needs their organizations to fulfill their potential.

“Clever” opens up a bright new way of leading those who set a different standard of thinking in the workplace. Goffee and Jones define “clever” people as “highly talented individuals with the potential to create disproportionate amounts of value from the resources that the organization makes available to them.” Goffee and Gareth Jones believe that it is not the leader’s place to tell the worker how to do it; it is up to them to tell them what to do. By doing so, these clever people can take companies to another level because they have room to explore and test new boundaries.

Clever people are known to have a big impact on society. “Clever” goes into great details about clever people in our world right now. From computer gaming Sims inventor William Wright, to Jonathan Ive creator of the iMac, these people allow society to live in the fast pace world we have become acquainted with.

The book, “Clever,” not only examines the significance of one clever person and their impact, but clever teams as well. Leading companies have learned that teamwork is a growing innovation and to use this concept to their advantage. Goffee and Jones use examples of the Apollo landing to point out that one cannot just put clever people together and make a team and expect them to perform to the highest of standards. The goal should be to develop a team to perform collectively. “Clever” continues to discuss the importance of “clevers” in teams and the breakdown of how each team should be assembled to perform efficiently. Goffee and Jones continue to take their readers through the ups and downs that organizations experience by examining organizations using old ideas while others experience success with a new clever way of thinking.

 “Clever” provides a great outlook on a new kind of leadership. Leadership can be defined in so many different ways, allowing revamped ways of leading people in the hands of those who want to achieve as much as possible. Goffee and Jones allow the people they have deemed “clever” to finally be led by leaders who are now able to understand their way of thinking. Because of this understanding between the leader and the follower, success is unavoidable. This new way of leading the “clevers” reminds me of the Total Quality Management (TQM) strategy. The goal for TQM is to focus strictly on quality of not only the product but the quality of return to satisfy the needs of the shareholders. Leading the “clevers” by combining TQM and the advice given by Goffee and Jones would serve as a successful and creative strategy for organizations. However, with any plan there will be fallbacks. Because TQM suggests to breakdown barriors between its departments in its fourteen points, the “clevers” would no longer be individuals. This concern could be problematic, unless teams were developed in a collective way, rather than assigned, to achieve a goal. Leading “clever” people focuses on the “what to do” not the “how to do it” leaving room for creativity and freedom like TQM suggests. Overall, the suggestions made by Goffee and Jones are ones to be noted because of their simplistic genius of leading and flawless strategies of the clever mind. 

Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones did a great job at aiming their book “Clever” at audiences that are ready for a change and new way of thinking. This book makes leadership seem like a quest and their readers are sure to be excited about this new way of leading clever people. For those in or even interested in public relations, I would definitely recommend this book. It provides many successful examples of leading those who think on a broader scale and possess skills that need to be harvested and applied to succeed. These people are obviously needed by organizations to keep up with the economy’s growing competitiveness and will bring about success wherever they are employed. For the vast majority of us planning to be in positions that require great leadership, learning to lead the people that are needed for an organization is the first step.