The solo genius

Whenever I talk to a group of businesspeople, I talk about the role of the individual in the corporation in coming up with creative, innovative solutions. I just stopped at a Starbucks to get a Frappuccino, and I remembered that the Frappuccino was invented by one clever employee at a Starbucks. It wasn’t a corporate invention. It was one woman’s idea (I think it was a woman), and it caught on, and after a while Starbucks’ headquarters heard about it and decided to adopt the recipe companywide. By now it’s got to be one of Starbucks’ biggest revenue-generators.

I made a note to myself about this on a Post-it pad. And then remembered that the Post-it pad was also invented by one creative guy at the 3-M company.