The Big Idea
In today뭩 tough times, and in the face of ever fiercer competition from all sides, you need to create a competitive advantage and sustain it. To do so, you must create and deliver something that뭩 valuable, rare and hard to imitate ? and a run-of-the-mill workforce can뭪 do that for you.

When it comes to winning customers and beating down competitors, the last thing you want to do is fit in. Your workforce needs to be strikingly different and obsessively focused on delivering your unique value proposition. Success will not come from being like your competition.

Ergo, you, your people and your organization need to be downright strange!

Dr. Daniel M. Cable is a Townsend Distinguished Prefessor of Management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hills Kenan-Flagler Business School. His consulting and teaching focus on aligning a wide spectrum of human systems with company strategy; his consulting clients have ranged from Sony Ericsson to The Bureau of Naval Personnel.