Many hiring groups are reluctant to hire people who have run their own businesses or seem too "entrepreneurial," and managers sometimes get nervous when a member of their team seems to be having too many new ideas. There seems to be a prevailing assumption that you have to choose between being a good team player and having ideas of your own. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, people with a proclivity for thinking around corners are probably just what your business needs. More than 80 percent of successful entrepreneurs reported to researchers that they had first offered their business ideas to their bosses but were told to forget it, because the idea seemed too unusual or risky. So much for the good judgment and eye for innovation of today's managerial class.

The best thing you can do to perk up a dragging organization or work unit is to be very, very good to your resident mavericks. Invite them to apply their nonlinear problem solving to the challenges you're facing. Rather than looking at them strangely, try rewarding them and asking them to share their perspectives with others. And if you don't have any entrepreneurial types, either hire some or, at the very least, bring some in as contractors.

Their influence might mean the difference between success and failure.

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