Originals: How Non-conformists Change the World

by Adam M. Grant

“People who suffer the most from a given state of affairs are paradoxically the least likely to question, challenge, reject, or change it.”

To explain this peculiar phenomenon, Jost’s team developed a theory of system justification.7 Its core idea is that people are motivated to rationalize the status quo as legitimate—even if it goes directly against their interests.

Child prodigies are hindered by achievement motivation. The drive to succeed is responsible for many of the world’s greatest accomplishments. When we’re determined to excel, we have the fuel to work harder, longer, and smarter. But as cultures rack up a significant number of achievements, originality is increasingly left to a specialized few.14 When achievement motivation goes sky-high, it can crowd out originality: The more you value achievement, the more you come to dread failure.15

I want to debunk the myth that originality requires extreme risk taking and persuade you that originals are actually far more ordinary than we realize. In every domain, from business and politics to science and art, the people who move the world forward with original ideas are rarely paragons of conviction and commitment. As they question traditions and challenge the status quo, they may appear bold and self-assured on the surface. But when you peel back the layers, the truth is that they, too, grapple with fear, ambivalence, and self-doubt.

They know in their hearts that failing would yield less regret than failing to try.

Conviction in our ideas is dangerous not only because it leaves us vulnerable to false positives, but also because it stops us from generating the requisite variety to reach our creative potential.

the face of uncertainty, our first instinct is often to reject novelty, looking for reasons why unfamiliar concepts might fail.26 When managers vet novel ideas, they’re in an evaluative mindset. To protect themselves against the risks of a bad bet, they compare the new notion on the table to templates of ideas that have succeeded in the past.

As we gain knowledge about a domain, we become prisoners of our prototypes.

Instead of attempting to assess our own originality or seeking feedback from managers, we ought to turn more often to our colleagues.

Research on highly creative adults shows that they tended to move to new cities much more frequently than their peers in childhood, which gave them exposure to different cultures and values, and encouraged flexibility and adaptability.

our intuitions are only accurate in domains where we have a lot of experience.

“But products don’t create value. Customers do.”

intuitions are only trustworthy when people build up experience making judgments in a predictable environment.

In the case of the Segway, he started with a solution and then went hunting for a problem. Rather than responding to market pull, he made the mistake of initiating a technology push.

“It’s never the idea; it’s always the execution.”

When people sought to exert influence but lacked respect, others perceived them as difficult, coercive, and self-serving. Since they haven’t earned our admiration, we don’t feel they have the right to tell us what to do, and we push back.

Just being told that they weren’t respected nearly doubled their chances of using their power in ways that degraded others.8

from the group’s expectations.10 Idiosyncrasy credits accrue through respect, not rank: they’re based on contributions. We squash a low-status member who tries to challenge the status quo, but tolerate and sometimes even applaud the originality of a high-status star.

“Unbridled optimism comes across as salesmanship; it seems dishonest somehow, and as a consequence it’s met with skepticism. Everyone is allergic to the feeling, or suspicious of being sold.”

You’ve spent hours, days, weeks, months, or maybe even years thinking about the idea. You’ve contemplated the problem, formulated the solution, and rehearsed the vision. You know the lyrics and the melody of your idea by heart. By that point, it’s no longer possible to imagine what it sounds like to an audience that’s listening to it for the first time.

Building on a classic book by economist Albert Hirschman, there are four different options for handling a dissatisfying situation.26 Whether you’re unhappy with your job, your marriage, or your government, decades of research show that you have a choice between exit, voice, persistence, and neglect.27

Disagreeable managers are typically the last people we seek when we’re going to go out on a limb, but they are sometimes our best advocates.

If you’re perched at the top, you’re expected to be different and therefore have the license to deviate. Likewise, if you’re still at the bottom of a status hierarchy, you have little to lose and everything to gain by being original. But the middle segment of that hierarchy—where the majority of people in an organization are found—is dominated by insecurity. Now that you have a bit of respect, you value your standing in the group and don’t want to jeopardize it. To maintain and then gain status, you play a game of follow-the-leader, conforming to prove your worth as a group member.

But genius is uncontrolled and uncontrollable. You cannot produce a work of genius according to a schedule or an outline.

In 1927, Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik demonstrated that people have a better memory for incomplete than complete tasks. Once a task is finished, we stop thinking about it. But when it is interrupted and left undone, it stays active in our minds.

During the address, King’s favorite gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson, shouted from behind him, “Tell ’em about the dream, Martin!” He continued with his script, and she encouraged him again. Before a live crowd of 250,000, and millions more watching on TV, King improvised, pushing his notes aside and launching into his inspiring vision of the future. “In front of all those people, cameras, and microphones,” Clarence Jones reflects, “Martin winged it.”

“Timing accounted for forty-two percent of the difference between success and failure.

Surprisingly, the downsides of being the first mover are frequently bigger than the upsides. On balance, studies suggest that pioneers may sometimes capture greater market share, but end up not only with lower chances of survival but lower profits as well.22

Being original doesn’t require being first. It just means being different and better.

One study of over three thousand startups indicates that roughly three out of every four fail because of premature scaling—making investments that the market isn’t yet ready to support.

“Moving first is a tactic, not a goal,” Peter Thiel writes in Zero to One; “being the first mover doesn’t do you any good if someone else comes along and unseats you.”

In the 1840s, when Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis discovered that having medical students wash their hands dramatically reduced death rates during childbirth, he was scorned by his colleagues and ended up in an asylum.

building effective coalitions involves striking a delicate balance between venerable virtues and pragmatic policies.

The message was clear: if you were a true believer, you’d be all in. The more strongly you identify with an extreme group, the harder you seek to differentiate yourself from more moderate groups that threaten your values.5

Researchers Debra Meyerson and Maureen Scully have found that to succeed, originals must often become tempered radicals.12 They believe in values that depart from traditions and ideas that go against the grain, yet they learn to tone down their radicalism by presenting their beliefs and ideas in ways that are less shocking and more appealing to mainstream audiences.

Shifting the focus from why to how can help people become less radical.

By tempering the brand of the movement and broadening its methods, it might have been possible to gain the support of more mainstream citizens.

When psychologists Penelope Lockwood and Ziva Kunda asked college students to list what they hoped to achieve over the following decade, they came up with perfectly ordinary objectives. Another group of students was instructed to read a newspaper article about an outstanding peer and then list their goals; they aimed much higher. Having a role model elevated their aspirations.

Groupthink is the enemy of originality; people feel pressured to conform to the dominant, default views instead of championing diversity of thought.

When a group becomes that cohesive, it develops a strong culture—people share the same values and norms, and believe in them intensely.3 And there’s a fine line between having a strong culture and operating like a cult.

There’s data to back it up: Psychologist Benjamin Schneider finds that organizations tend to become more homogeneous over time.8 As they attract, select, socialize, and retain similar people, they effectively weed out diversity in thoughts and values. This is especially likely in established firms with strong commitment cultures, where similarity is the basis for hiring, and employees face intense pressure to fit in or get out.

When every member of a group has different information, inquiry needs to precede advocacy—which means you have to raise the problems before pursuing solutions.