Unconventional

What it looks like

• Questions the usual way of doing something, and tries another when it might work better.
• Dresses, speaks or lives in their own way without needing others to follow.
• Keeps a convention that protects safety or fairness, and departs from the ones that are only habit.

Fits when a person characteristically departs from custom in thoughtful or interesting ways

Not when difference is pursued for attention or a convention protects safety and fairness

How to say it

Replace the brackets with what the person actually did.

• Tested [new method, channel or format] in place of [standard practice] for [task], cutting [cost or time] by [amount]; [team or company] later adopted it.

  Copy

• [Name] takes an unconventional approach that works: when [problem] would not give way to the usual method, they tried [different approach], and it [result].

  Copy

• [Name] often finds unconventional ways to solve problems in math and design, and can explain clearly why their method works.

  Copy

• Every other candidate had brought slides. She brought a box of broken parts from the factory floor, set it on the table, and asked the panel to guess which part had cost the most.

  Copy