Draw the line. Decide how much maverick behavior is too much. Wihtol remembers managing a female programmer who occasionally came to work in a Girl Scout uniform or a cheerleading outfit. He and her co-workers respected her technical skills enough to let her get away with it.

Clamping down or letting behavior slide depends on the situation, Wihtol adds. Assess your goals, your company's culture and your department's objectives when deciding how much eccentricity -- or annoyance -- you'll tolerate. "If the manager wants to encourage thinking off the edge, if they want to have people step up and be more exploratory, if they want more innovation and testing of the system in a positive and constructive way, they may allow the behavior to continue," he says. On the other hand, managers working in organizations where IT workers have more interactions with business people or where shaking up the status quo isn't valued might need to rein in some maverick behavior.

Once you strike the right balance and learn to work with your mavericks rather than against them, you may find that they're a secret weapon in the war against mediocrity.

Pratt is a Computerworld contributing writer in Waltham, Mass. You can contact her at marykpratt@verizon.net.

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