I support your right to run your business as you see fit, and I know that there is both value and profit in that way, but as someone who has seen both perspectives from both sides of the fence I can tell you this:
That does not scale.
If you hire the exact person you want and they get exactly the results you want, you’ve just installed a black box in to your company. You cannot duplicate them and cannot replace them seamlessly if something happens.
In a real way you are now reliant on that specific person and they only have so many hours in a day (and only so much motivation).
Experience tells me that the “20% time” way is the right balance: Support employees in exploring unknown (and possibly much better) ways, and spend 80% of the time following processes that are known to work. Black boxes can cripple a company if work is 100% at the will of single employees, and so much valuable insight is lost when it swings 100% the other way.
That does not scale.
If you hire the exact person you want and they get exactly the results you want, you’ve just installed a black box in to your company. You cannot duplicate them and cannot replace them seamlessly if something happens.
In a real way you are now reliant on that specific person and they only have so many hours in a day (and only so much motivation).
Experience tells me that the “20% time” way is the right balance: Support employees in exploring unknown (and possibly much better) ways, and spend 80% of the time following processes that are known to work. Black boxes can cripple a company if work is 100% at the will of single employees, and so much valuable insight is lost when it swings 100% the other way.