Working in such an organisation and being in the middle ranks (Manager), I may have a reconciling view to offer. These huge organisations (I see partners mentio

Working in such an organisation and being in the middle ranks (Manager), I may have a reconciling view to offer. These huge organisations (I see partners mentioned so I will assume big4) are not pioneering innovators (even if they try to appear so) but powerhouses of mediocrity. You can be brilliant and it will be appreciated to some degree, but most probably the passion that comes with your brilliance will be subdued by the layers of mediocrity between you and the mediocre leadership. In partnerships, this is even more accentuated by the fact that there is division of power by design, so even if a visionary leader appreciates a vision you still have to convince the partnership which is mostly a matter of PR rather than quality of idea. I can relate to the graduate, but the fact is a brilliant graduate will be too anxious to demonstrate their skills which does not help them see the reality. It is not a matter of personal skills, there are brilliant people sprinkled in the organisation at different levels, but a matter of organisational culture that builds on commoditising ideas. In a big organisation the skills are averaged out and it is the greatest common divisor that can be commoditised. There are more brilliant partners than graduates but the aggregated soup is tasteless. And by the time you are a partner you make enough money to not care about the spice you add to the soup but about the measured KPIs that make up your contribution (sales.) It reads more like a rant, but I am glad to give more details on specifics. Just to address the title, it is not that firms don't want you to be brilliant at your job, it is that they could not care less unless it is a client that focuses on your brilliance. And the situation with clients is very similar but I will not address it here.