Here is a brief excerpt from an article by Julian Birkinshaw that originally appeared in Harvard Business Review (May 2014), Beware the Next Big Thing, was selected by the HBR Editors to be included in HBR’s 10 Must Reads 2015: The Definitive Management Ideas of the Year from Harvard Business Review, published by Harvard Business Review Press (2015).

“When you’re deciding whether to import a management innovation from another firm, it’s crucial to consider the source. Most innovations originate in companies that might be called deviants,” in that they don’t follow the crowd. But not all deviants are alike. Be careful which firms you borrow from.”

Upstarts: These are young, small, sometimes intentionally iconoclastic firms…Of course, it’s easy to be unconventional when you‘re small. Don’t expect an upstart’s experiments to work in a larger, established company.

Related Species: These aren’t business organizations, but they can provide useful insights. Alcohol Anonymous, for instance, shows how an organization with a clear sense of purpose can function with no formal control system.

Certified Weird: These are highly successful companies that, despite their large size, operate by their own rules…But virtually all such companies have governance models such as family ownership or trusts that help them maintain their individuality.

Dancing Giants: These are big, traditional companies that have experimented with unusual models…Dancing giants’ practices can be great sources of ideas, because they’ve already withstood shareholder scrutiny.

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Julian Birkinshaw is a professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the London Business School. To learn more about him and his work, please click here.