In the final chapter of his latest book, The High-Speed Company, written with Larry Haughton, Jason Jennings cites a conversation in one of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels, Bluebeard, when the painter Rabo Kazrabekian listens to his neighbor, Paul Slazinger, who tells him about his latest concept, “The Only Way to Have a Successful Revolution in Any Field of Human Activity.” He recommends a team of three specialists:

First, an authentic genius — a person capable of having seemingly good ideas not in general circulation. “A genius working alone is invariably ignored as a lunatic.”

The next is a specialist…a highly intelligent citizen in good standing who understands and admires the fresh ideas of the genius and who testifies that the genius is far from mad. “A person like that…can only yearn out loud for changes but fail to say what their shapes should be.”

Finally, a person who can explain anything, no matter how complicated, to the satisfaction of most people no matter how stupid or pig-headed they may be. “He will say almost anything to be interesting and exciting…Working alone…he would be regarded as being as full of shit as a Christmas turkey.”

“If you can’t get as cast like that together, you can forget about anything in a great big way,” he [Slazinger] says.

To a significant extent, Jason Jennings combines the strengths of a visionary who recognizes or imagines what others don’t with those of an authority who validates and sanctions those breakthrough insights, and those of a raconteur of compelling stories that attract and engage others whose support is essential to the success of the given enterprise.

I highly recommend his latest book, The High-Speed Company: Creating Urgency and Growth in a Nanosecond Culture, published by Portfolio/Penguin Group (March 17, 2015), as well as each of its predecessors. To learn more about him and his work, please click here.