I have a lifelong obsession with The Muppets. I even proposed to my wife in Kermit's voice. But beyond the nostalgia, Jim Henson is the ultimate case study in rejecting the corporate machine.
Henson didn't know a lot about TV, and he didn't know much about puppets. He once said, "I think if you study—if you learn too much of what others have done, you may tend to take the same direction as everybody else."
In what Jim built, there was none of the traditional business dogma. No product-market fit, no minimally-viable product, no focus groups, no failing fast.
When he hired Paul Williams to write the score for The Muppet Movie—their first feature production, with the entire future of his dream riding on it—Paul went off to work in solitude. He assured Jim he’d have plenty of opportunity to review the score before they got into the studio.
Jim told him that wasn't necessary. He trusted whatever he came up with.
In today's corporate climate, that looks like negligence. But Jim understood something that modern management has completely forgotten. He knew that if you hire brilliant people and actually leave them alone, magic mixed with magic creates something you could never engineer on a whiteboard.
He didn't just refuse to micromanage. He knew that he was being guided by something bigger than himself, and he trusted that his team was, too. He knew that his own commentary would only get in the way.