One of last year’s biggest hits was Top Gun: Maverick. The story takes place quite a bit later than the 1980s original, but in many ways Maverick is unchanged. He’s still chasing the edge—flying as fast as he can, willing to take a risk, not too obedient to authority. He’s one of the most accomplished pilots, but where is he? He has stalled out somewhere in the promotion cycle. As the rear admiral says, Maverick should be a two-star admiral or a senator by now, but he’s not.
Why isn’t Maverick an admiral? He can’t play by the rules. He can’t keep his mouth shut. He doesn’t just do the job, he is the job. “It’s not just what I do, it’s who I am,” he tells his friend. If he believes in something or thinks it is the right thing to do, he won’t be stopped. At the beginning of the movie, he insists on flying the experimental aircraft he’s been test piloting, even though he’s been ordered not to and he knows he can get in serious trouble. His Warrant Officer says: “You know what happens to you if you do this.” Maverick winningly replies: “I know what happens to all of them if I don’t.” He is thinking of the people in the program. Someone has to save this program. He’s willing to go down to do it. He’d rather crash and burn than get promoted by playing it safe and pleasing superiors.
A comparison character with Maverick might be McNulty from The Wire. Detective Jimmy McNulty is more seriously a ne’er do well than Maverick, but he is still a kindred spirit. No one cares as much as McNulty about solving murders. He wants to close cases, even the kinds of cases the city of Baltimore would rather ignore. He will do all kinds of research and play the press and do whatever it takes to close files. Does this please his supervisors? No. McNulty won’t play by the rules, he won’t show deference when he should, he drinks too much, and all he cares about is the job. He doesn’t care enough about the game, he only cares to get results. In short, he’s a real pain in the neck.
We love these characters on the screen. Maverick is an icon. People were losing their minds with nostalgia and then imagining themselves as the kind of guys who are test pilots, ride motorcycles without helmets, and take down enemies against insurmountable odds. No one is cheering for any of his bosses. McNulty is lovable. You care a bit for the supervisors in The Wire, but you see that guys like McNulty are the heart of the operation. He has the most heart in the organization. Unsung heroes are the ones who really care. We pay money to watch guys like Maverick and McNulty and we idolize them to some degree. Then we go back to work.
We might celebrate a character like Maverick on the screen, but in the actual workplace, we don’t. Bosses buy tickets for movies like Top Gun and then get tired of emails from their peskiest perfectionists. Coworkers cheer for Top Gun and roll their eyes at their ambitious peers. The person who sees the most potential for a program at work may also very well be the most annoying person in the meeting. The people who push the envelope, who can’t always be polite, who have all the talent in the world… they really do sometimes stall out. They really do drive their bosses and coworkers crazy. They really do overcommit to a job, identifying with it and failing to find attainable success.
One thing we see in movies like Top Gun is that sometimes that hard-charging, hard to handle employee or coworker is onto something. Sometimes a great deal of good can come from them pushing the envelope. The best bosses don’t frustrate them, they find a way to facilitate their development and use their strengths for the organization. McNulty is a really good detective. Put him with the right team, give them the right resources, and all kinds of cases will get solved. Employees like these get under people’s skin, but they also remind us that playing it safe will not get us the best results. Plenty of other pilots kind of wish Maverick would die in a crash, but they’re all better off because he doesn’t.
Movies and television aren’t real life, but we all know a real person who is really talented but drives their boss and coworkers crazy. So, let’s let the fictional figures help us bridge the gap a bit. If we can admire these characters on the big and small screens, we can find ways to make spaces for them in organizations. Would you rather your Maverick work elsewhere? Do you not want McNulty on your murder cases? Let’s find a way to work with the best/worst employees. If we can appreciate Maverick, we can appreciate our work neighbors a little more.