Your Conformity is Boring Everyone.

You might say that by taking the well travelled path is easy, predicable, it helps you feel more confident and self-assured because someone else has been there before. You might think that the path to success means looking at what other are doing, and following those steps – why re-invent the wheel you might argue. It might even be natural to agree on the side of the majority – after all if they’re all agreeing, they must be right. Right?

Mark Twain once said, “Whenever you find yourself on the side of majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

I don’t know about you but I find conformity tedious. It only leads to boredom, dissatisfaction and a complacent state of mind. None of these things are good for business in the long run; they’re not good for us personally or professionally and they’re not good for our staff.

On a larger scale, following the pack makes you, and your business, one of the pack. It puts you in the firing line right next to direct competitors.

It is now time for you to not conform, take a different path, experiment and have some fun while you’re at it. Start now…

• Break your routine: Have you ever noticed your best ideas take place in the most unusual places? In the shower, during your morning jog or in the middle of the night are all common examples of times when you’re allowing your brain to take time out. Often, you need to get out of your head and give it space to start thinking differently; the traditional 9-5 work week just doesn’t cut it. If you’re running your own business, you have the luxury of making your own hours and taking a break; really, you do!

  I recently broke conformity in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, it helped to clarify my thinking – it wasn’t just for MJ. I took a helicopter flight over Sydney, this allowed for big picture ‘let’s conquer the world’ kind of thinking. Test ran a floatation tank aided sensory deprivation allowing for a fabulous flow of ideas, seeing patterns and opportunities. I also enjoy working on a laptop in a noisy and active environment, like a shopping centre helped to expand a brainstorming session.

• Think of other businesses as potential collaborators: Often, thinking of similar businesses as competitors leads to copycat behaviour and causes us to conform – crazy right? Forget competition! Competition implies that you and your competitor are in the exact same race – did you start at the same time? Did you start with the same capital? Is your brand the same? Are you the same person? Why not look at other businesses as collaborative opportunities and think about how you could be in a more symbiotic relationship.
• Try a more focussed approach to networking: Most businesses run in the same circles, there’s a networking event on, so they attend. Why not try breaking away from your usual networking crowd, find where you’re target market hangs out, observe them, study them, ask them lots and lots of questions, find out what they really want and need, and then deliver it. Yes that does takes time but it’s also well worth the effort.
• Question Everything: Listen to what everyone has to say but be objective about what you hear. Question what the experts say just as much as you question the common voice. Lots of people are happy to give you advice but question its relevance to your business and yourself. You might find that there a few hand-me-down standard business practices that are simple not true or relevant. Even questions for yourself whether what I’ve wrote here is true for you.

The easy road in business might mean taking the common, prescribed path and that might mean you’ll fail less often, it might make you feel safe and secure but isn’t this less rewarding emotional, mentally and financial?

As Robert Frost wrote “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I– I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference”.

Image via the #1 artist of non conformity

This entry was posted on Monday, March 14th, 2011 at 8:18 pm and is filed under ANGELIQUE MILOJEVIC, Books, BUSINESS, ETHONOMICS, FEATURED, GEN X Y Z, Innovations, LEADERSHIP, THE WHITE ROOM and tagged with 2011, art risk, BUSINESS, non conformity, STRATEGY, thefuture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.