In my private life and in my profession, I have often made use of the treasure that I have had since childhood as one of six children: my status as the “black sheep”.

The little story I remember is that at Christmas time, each of the six of us used to line up our sheep on the fireplace with the aim, each day, as long as we were good, of getting our little animal one step closer to the creche, the aim being to get there on Christmas Day.

As far back as I can remember as a little boy, I don’t recall ever arriving at my destination on time.

Does that mean I’ve never been a good boy?

But what does it mean to be wise when you’re a child?

If being wise means merging into the mass, conforming strictly and without objective criticism to the rules laid down by parental authority or the hierarchy, eroding the creative asperities of one’s character in favor of the common opinion of the soft mass of do-gooders and executors, then it’s true that I have never been, and never will be, entirely wise.

Yet, paradoxically, I’ve never been as accomplished and happy as I was in strictly formatted environments and as part of large teams. My first example was my military service, where despite a strict framework, discipline, and hierarchy, as a black sheep I managed to think outside the box and transform a team made up of ‘odds and ends’ into a finalist in a major inter-battalion competition.

That’s how I would sum up my many experiences in industry, particularly in the manufacture of medicines.

But how have I managed, over all these years, with the profile that I have, to forge such an exciting path in this world of the pharmaceutical industry, where it is wrongly imagined that, despite a highly formatted and regulated environment, there is no room for creativity and originality.

This is the mystery of my existence, which I owe above all to the trust that all these managers and customers have placed in me, from Spa to Heppignies, from Mayenne to Amiens, from Tianjin to Rio de Janeiro, from Shannon to Taipei.

“TO WIN IS TO BE FREE

So how can a black sheep in a team be a winning formula?

Let there be no mistake, using the term “winning” for a black sheep does not mean being victorious, being the “Caliph in the Caliph’s place”, being the first, the highest, the most titled in the hierarchy!

No, for a black sheep, “winning” simply means being free, free in your mind, free to use your professional skills, free to rely on strong values and convictions, free to support your customers’ most important causes without restraint.

So, for a company, hiring a ‘Black sheep’ is a guarantee of recruiting a free man or woman, free above all not to follow pre-determined paths that would lead to nothing brilliant anyway, free not to listen to self-righteous people dreaming only of their own glory or comfort.

With the black sheep, there is no risk of falling prey to courtship or flattery, but rather the irresistible desire to be free through frankness, truth, loyalty to one’s values and convictions, as well as to the satisfaction of the customer who has placed his trust in them.

With the black sheep, it’s all a question of trust, trust that is integrated into a given framework and objectives, providing the freedom that guarantees creativity and efficiency.

COMPANIES, PUT A BLACK SHEEP IN YOUR MOTOR!

In one of my reads for this summer of 2023, “Why the Black Sheep Wins” by David W Williams, I found many of the arguments that should convince companies to hire black sheep, particularly useful in phases of organizational, system or process transformation.

“A black sheep seems immune to group pressure, unaffected by social pressure; he firmly believes in his vision of the world to an almost unrealistic degree”.

In fact, he really does have the ability to listen, then move on towards the whole world, to tell it he’s wrong, to move on in spite of everything in pursuit of his dreams, ignoring the whispering voices of Cassandras and the cries of dissent.

The most successful among them have this ability to ignore the social pressure to conform to the majority, all because these sympathetic animals, despite their gregarious spirit, have no concern whatsoever about being ostracized.

They all possess the unshakeable conviction that they will overcome any obstacle but are nonetheless flexible in the way they do so.

They never settle on a particular path – they have a goal in mind and will take any route to get there; if the back door isn’t open, they try the window, if the window isn’t open, they break down the door.

Even if these paths are punctuated with warnings, people who make fun of them or advice that they will never succeed, they don’t let themselves be stopped. That’s the essential difference with the mass of mortals.

A ‘no’ is never a ‘no’ – it’s just a temporary rejection from a source. There is a whole world to pursue in the quest for acceptance and success.

All it takes is for one person in the organisation, his client, his hierarchy, to believe in his vision of the situation for him to start realising it; nothing will stop him then, because he has the ability to ignore things that would divert him from his mission.

In a forthcoming article, I’ll tell you about 2 or 3 professional examples, in Belgium, Germany and Rio de Janeiro, where this status brought me wonderful victories, which far exceeded the few inconveniences that my freedom of thought and speech could have caused.

Emmanuel de Ryckel