Earlier in my career, as a very young executive at the TM Companies, Ogilvy & Mather became our agency. I met David Ogilvy during one of our day-trips from Dallas to his Houston office. It was a career moment held in time. A leading media publisher recently referred to Ogilvy as "The Einstein of Advertising." I'll sign that proclamation.
 
In his well-read book Confessions of an Advertising Man, Ogilvy wrote, "Tolerate genius. My observation has been that mediocre people recognize genius, resent it, and feel compelled to destroy it. There are few men of genius in media, but we need all we can find. Don't destroy them, they lay golden eggs."
 
In my management and consulting memory there exists a mythical file, found under "creativity." If it had a caption, it would read, "A core characteristic of a creative person is that he or she will invariably upon receiving information or data, choose a course that is the exact opposite of the majority." Creative people walk the sands alone at midnight. They bring us humor and light sometimes trammeled with frustration. They are their own drum and bugle corps, marching to a completely different cadence. In medieval times, they were burned at the stake. Today, they are essential to any organization serious about becoming better, or critically needing brand differentiation. And where do we find such people? Are they men and women "just like us," separated only by their holding onto something we lost a long time ago? Or, are they of truly different wiring altogether?
 
The sagacious George Johns says "There are but three types of people in radio: the gifted, the creative...and everyone else."
 
Behaviorist B.S. Bloom at the University Of Chicago probed this question by testing two control groups; one selected for their apparent high level of creativity, the other as "average." From volumes of data mining, Bloom could isolate only two essential differences: (1) the creative people he tested were seen as having an extremely high level of work-obsession (albeit not necessarily conventional), and (2) they tended to be more asocial than social.
 
So, toward seizing the advantage of the creative people on your floor, here are some un-researched, unscientific observations from which to work:
 
*The creative person is more sensitive to everything.
 
*They are not automatically comfortable with being a joiner. They may not claim a retinue of close friends and don't interpret self-esteem through social acceptance.
 
*They are independent and assertive, often (but not universally) right brained. They prefer ideas to process.
 
*They have the capacity to be puzzled, and to specialize in the unknown. They are spontaneous, excitable, compulsive, and complex. They may present a leadership challenge but they are always an incalculable asset.
 
Might we be missing a fundamental concept succinctly framed by Conan Doyle? "Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself."