The wisdom of the day is that your business is doomed to fail if you don’t overturn the status quo. You have to think outside the box, start a revolution, break all the rules—pick your own overheated rhetoric. The assumption is that new value in a company can be created only when people shed their suits, don khakis and Hawaiian shirts, and think and act like the most passionate entrepreneurs. The problem is, they’re rarely told when it makes sense to do those things—or how to do them.
A version of this article appeared in the February 2001 issue of Harvard Business Review.