Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World

by Adam M. Grant

The most creative fashion collections came from houses where directors had the greatest experience abroad, but there were three twists. First, time living abroad didn’t matter: it was time working abroad, being actively engaged in design in a foreign country, that predicted whether their new collections were hits. The most original collections came from directors who had worked in two or three different countries. Second, the more the foreign culture differed from that of their native land, the more that experience contributed to the directors’ creativity. An American gained little from working in Canada, compared to the originality dividends of a project in Korea or Japan. But working in multiple countries with different cultures wasn’t enough. The third and most important factor was depth—the amount of time spent working abroad. A short stint did little good, because directors weren’t there long enough to internalize the new ideas from the foreign culture and synthesize them with their old perspectives. The highest originality occurred when directors had spent thirty-five years working abroad.