The General Consensus?

In a meeting with an executive, I heard the comment: "Well, the general consensus seems to be heading in that direction, so perhaps we should as well." This got me thinking. The herd mentality. Is that always good? Perhaps the evaluation is not in the direction everyone else is going a good thing, but rather, is it the safe thing? I got curious about this concept. Why is it that business leaders so often want to find out what the general direction is? What is everyone else doing when it seems that we should be doing what no one else is doing?

“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” - Nietzsche

Doing what everyone else is doing is perceived as the safe path, but based on my own personal and anecdotal evidence, this is not the case. You think you are safe because that is what everyone else is doing, but in many, if not most cases, they are heading on a slow decline. Groups do bring safety in numbers, but we are not talking about physical safety here; we are talking about what we are doing to set ourselves apart in our market, in our companies, and in our careers. If we are doing what everyone else is doing, we are not going to be able to be easily distinguished.

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

It seems that no company has had tremendous success in conforming to the behaviors of the majority of companies in their market. So why is it that business leaders are looking for social proof that their behavior is similar to others? Why do they compare what they are doing to their competition as if they need to use social conformity as the ultimate barometer for making business decisions? This is perplexing to me. True, conformity is the safe and prudent path, but in my opinion, it is a slow and eventual death. All things slowly degrade over time, and continuing along with the pack means finding yourself on the very same slow decline as all other competitors in the same market. I would love to find a market to compete in that is always in growth mode, but I have not found that yet. Even if I did, that market would internally change dramatically. Case in point: I sold tape libraries in the IT space when I was younger. True, the IT space is usually growing, but not tape libraries. Yes, you can still buy them, but this is not a growth sector!

"the general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.” - Mill

A video game that I played as a child was called Lemmings. This is a creature in the Arctic regions of the Northern Continents. Their population increases and shrinks dramatically. There was a myth that became a common belief that these Lemmings would participate in mass extinction events, such as jumping off a cliff into the ocean together. When Lemmings have a massive population increase, they tend to migrate quickly, and when they do, they can meet a similar fate. This is not intentional, it is the rapid and sudden migratory pattern that occurs. Thanks to Walt Disney in 1958 (White Wilderness), we all fell under the notion that Lemmings all followed each other off cliffs as a natural behavior.

We learned years later that this was largely staged. Sure, this may happen on rare occasions, but it certainly looked like it might happen as the team chucked the little creatures off the cliff.

I digress, but this became the legend of the Lemmings and, hence, my video game as a kid. You had a series of creatures following each other, and you had to keep building the path. If you did not, then they would all follow each other to their deaths. This was always sudden and dramatic; you would run out of pathway, and then they would all tumble and fall into the abyss.

The Disney legend and this game had it wrong. The Lemmings do indeed follow each other to their death, but not of a sudden cliff like a jump into the sea. What they do is slowly and gradually follow each other into obscurity. This is the more appropriate analogy for using the herd mentality to guide your decision-making.

This is hard, I know. The tendency is to want to go with the crowd. Emotionally it is hard to go against prevailing wisdom. It is risky to make a decision that no one else is doing. Going along with all the other Lemmings feels easier, safer, and wise. The reality is that you might have to do this for a little while, and in certain areas, but at some point, the sooner, the better you must divert off the path or face their shared fate.