Become Unique
Seth Godin's book Purple Cow highlights the need for organizations to develop a distinguishing uniqueness that sets them apart in the marketplace ; in other words, become a purple cow in a pasture full of brown-spotted cows. Now, Daniel M. Cable, a University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill professor, delivers a much needed how-to manual on becoming a purple cow without using Godin's term. Cable's book, Change to Strange: Create a Great Organization by Building a Strange Workforce, published by Wharton, outlines four steps toward uniqueness. The central step--the one without which nothing changes--is answering the question, "What do we create or provide that is valuable, rare, and hard to imitate?" Based on the answer, one then designs organizational and human infrastructure to make more valuable, rare, and hard to imitate products and services.
That is much easier said than done. Put into action, it means hiring ONLY those people who can help deliver that which sets your organization apart. In many cases, giving inspiration to Cable's title, he finds that these employees are "strange" when compared with those typical in an industry. The strangeness comes from their interest in things that are different from the average employee, such as a passion for business results or a desire to work faster and cheaper. Every skilled teacher can convey information accurately and completely. Only "strange" ones do so while fomenting passion in students, allegiance from parents, and greater demand for their classes.
So it turns out that to be a purple cow, you have to have unusual employees. Brown-spotted ones are just more of the same.