The Free Range

The “free range” is a metaphor the Mavericks Network uses to describe the sources of innovation and organizational renewal, particularly for corporations in need of rediscovering their entrepreneurial fire. 

“Free range” denotes the variety of different places and approaches to which successful veterans of corporate innovation turn for their inspiration (and their perspiration!). Other metaphors include “leading edge,” “out-of-the-box” and “window of opportunity.” The free range goes hand-in-hand with these other metaphors, especially in the context of the maverick way.

All of these expressions point to what Peter Drucker recognized long ago: “Innovation demands systematic abandonment of the established, the customary, the familiar, the comfortable . . .”  

“The Free Range is an area that is rich with the potential for corporate growth and innovation. By being “unbranded,” the maverick is able to cut across both internal and external borders, bringing people and ideas together . . .the free range is a place where the rules are being formed and reformed. Two things are battling it out—liberation versus domestication. And that’s what the free range is about. It is a place of conflict. And the maverick collects conflict.”  (from The Maverick Way).

Albert Einstein said, “Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings, admiring, asking and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science.” The free range is where the seeds of innovations are not only discovered, but initially fed and nourished.

Free range means getting beyond the boundaries of our own paradigms, the limitations of our own experiences, the “blinders” of our own point of view. Mavericks are uniquely equipped to accomplish this for corporations as they are able to evade the organization’s antibodies to change (antibodies that are quite sensible in a world of too many options).

The free range is both a destination and a journey. It is a part from the “safe” confines of the corporate “pasture,” an exploration of realities outside the normative and at times confining corporate “realities.”

In the free range, mavericks search for, participate in, and learn from what is new and dawning. Mavericks do this by immersing themselves as much as possible in these other emerging realities. Thus immersed in the new reality, and because of their corporate affiliation, mavericks are in a position to discover and cultivate potent connections between observations, ideas and people. These connections are the sources of innovation and corporate renewal. For each company the “free range” may be a different “place” and a different “time.”

The notion of free range captures a frame of reference (if not a frame of mind) that is similar to the notion of the [entrepreneurial] window of opportunity. Just as the maverick is a person who doesn’t quite “fit,” so too does the free range offer the chance to discover innovations and opportunities that do not seem to fit, at least initially. Mavericks help find the fit, if it is to be found.

As Gary Hamel put it: “New wealth is created not by prophets but by heretics. . .Not satisfied with something better, they want something different.” Experienced mavericks know how to navigate in their corporation’s “free range” such that the proximity and timing of the opportunities these mavericks discover there are more attractive to their corporation.

The  Free Range is:

•  A method of gaining access to unconscious thoughts or ideas which are useful in throwing off our inhibitions and playing like children.

•  A way of forming unorthodox thoughts based on independent reasoning by doubting conventional wisdom.

•  A place where one can choose between alternatives such that the result is an unrestricted creative or innovative action.

•  A wide open space where one can roam freely and graze without restrictions in order to exploit it.

•  A place to enjoy unrestrained liberty of action to change all dimensions of an idea or thought.  

This article was originally published in Innovating Perspectives in September 2001. For this and other back issues of our newsletter, please visit our website at innovationsthatwork.com or call (415) 460-1313.