Exploring Kelley’s benevolent noncompliance [1], has been more formally studied as goal displacement [10], exploration vs exploitation, but also creative deviance. Kelley’s take is about how organizations are kind of like functioning alcoholics, formal and goal-oriented looking on the outside, but held together by unsanctioned thankless sustainment and stewardship of the few.
This paper [2] formally explores this topic–no pun intended 😆–and my initial thought is that cultivating deviant creativity is a kind of artform. Helicopter management can likely only will it into wilting.
Funny enough, I think the blog post I recall from the past which is close to this, one of Joel Spolsky’s , not necessarily this one [3] but maybe, is that a good company is one where management fosters the environment for greatness without attempting to steer it. I somehow remember him using the word “cheerleader”. I cannot find that article though.
Kelley points out Michael Scott as a deleterious boss, but I kind of also remember him trying his best, to construct a good environment. Though not always being fully transparent, he had a good heart and he was just being human, faults and all.
I am still making my way through [2] so I might revise this, but I am finding maybe an analogy could be sort of “looking the other way” when the the secret innovation slips out. There is a sort of trust that folks in an org need, like a psychological safety, that when they ultimately reveal the fruits of their bootlegging, they are not retaliated against for not following protocols.
People say trust is a two way street, but instead I think this relies on the quote in Joel’s article that is in [3],
“Smart, and Gets Things Done.”
which I think [2] also empirically measures, is a kind of non-negotiable. So it is more like trust is really a one way thing. And in the other direction, there is credibility through consistent results.
Play
So [2] points to play, like this quote from a person at Neptune, a company being profiled.
It’s like exploration that I was not asked to look at, but you know, I’m playing with those projects and if they look promising after a while, then I’ll try and establish those projects officially as part of my work plan and get management’s support and funding and resources. And if not, I’ll play with something else. There are things that you typically manage to fit in your workload because you have passion for them.
Social norms
And [2] also helps to describe, how teammates help each other to navigate the whole thing. So how to go about cultivating and incubating, while also delivering the official work and then finally demoing the artifacts from the behind the scenes work.
Plausible Deniability
Management just wants the benefit of the optics that they did no harm. They did not take the risk after all. So then how do we feel about the charades and kabuki theatre? Taboos and unspoken rules of engagement.
From the entrepreneurial space
I am also reminded by this quote from my mind, about pursuing the unordinary uncharted territory. ([2] also reflects on the uncharted). I remember perhaps this was from Stewart Brand about what you should pursue. If other people are doing it, then it is already too late. And if you sell the idea to other people and they tell you you’re crazy, you might be on to something. Searching with ChatGPT, I hit the Paul Graham 2023 essay about Great Work [6], but digging further about my memory hearing this from at least 2013, ChatGPT found a letter from Buckminster Fuller to a ten year old boy, from 1970
“The things to do are: the things that need doing, that you see need to be done, and that no one else seems to see need to be done….. Then you will conceive your own way of doing that which needs to be done—that no one else has told you to do or how to do it.”
Although the Paul Graham essay is oddly recent 2023, it does also bring a useful grounding element as well, in that other than people telling you you are crazy for the sake of it, he says you should use others to help you calibrate, that eventually you are able to come up with a good argument. Probably this requires a lot of people you can trust for the good honest feedback.
Also very much Peter Steinberger quote too, about boring and hard , like a sweet spot for his work.
“Difficult but not too interesting” [8,9]
This topic is about your beating heart and fanning your flame. I realize I end up writing on this topic every once in a while to help me remember why do the meaningful even when others try to bring you down.
References
- https://andrewkelley.me/post/dont-take-black-pill.html , https://youtu.be/zLZwpH5lCD4
- bootlegging, Or creative deviance , https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/orsc.2013.0856
- https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/09/07/a-field-guide-to-developers-2/
- Lex Fridman interview(s) with Stephen Wolfram
- Netflix No Rules Rules
- https://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html , 2023
- Buckminster Fuller, letter, 1970, https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller?utm_source=chatgpt.com#:~:text=edit-,The%20Things%20to%20do%20are%3A%20the%20things%20that%20need%20doing%2C%20that,letter%20as%20to%20whether%20Fuller%20was%20a%20%22doer%22%20or%20a%20%22thinker%22.,-We%20must%20do
- Peter Steinberger interview on Pragmattic Programmer, my citation, https://michal.piekarczyk.xyz/note/2026-05-01-odsc-closing-notes/#:~:text=%E2%80%9Cdifficult%20but%20not%20too%20interesting%E2%80%9D.
- Peter Steinberger interview on Pragmattic Programmer, https://youtu.be/8lF7HmQ_RgY&t=4180
- Goal Displacement, sounds interesting, but pay-walled, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/0033-3352.00075