I can’t think of anything worse than “working for a living”. I am all for beginning with what people want to do and then finding a way to make sure it is economically viable.

Indeed in my experience of supervising people, if they are unable or unwilling (or simply uninspired) to do what I think, once I have got over my frustration, exploring their ideas is productive. There is a good paper in the current issue of the Rotman newsletter in integrative thinking – reconciling seemingly opposing ideas. They conclude this is currently tacit knowledge of individuals – and therefore chance talent for the organization. The trick is to build it in to the system. It should be a bad day when everyone agrees with us! Nothing new happened. No surprising value was created.