What Marvel's Multiverse and Stranger Things' Upside Down get right about Being Contrarian

I recently saw a video that moved me. A young boy is wrestling with a classmate. The classmate is differently abled, and not a match for the boy in terms of physical prowess or wrestling skill. With utmost patience and infinite gentleness, the boy goes a round with his opponent and allows him to win, while not making it too easy for him. The video went viral because of the wonderful humanity demonstrated by the young boy. It stays with you because kindness, gentleness and patience are not virtues most people would normally associate with a young teen boy.

When we behave in ways that are contrary to how others expect us to behave, it leaves a mark. This is one of the values of being contrarian.

In English history,?Contrariant?was the name given to Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, and the barons who took part with him in the rebellion against Edward II, "because, on account of their great power, it was not expedient to call them rebels or traitors" [from Century Dictionary].

To be contrary means to act in a different way than what is expected, or to hold a different view from the prevailing one.

Contrary and opposite are not the same.

The opposite of Black is White. The contrary of Black is a whole range of things: “not white”, “red”, “a different colour”, “colourless”, or a few other possibilities.

That’s the beauty of being a contrarian: the possibilities are endless.

Marvel created a 'Multi'verse, as opposed to our belief in a 'Uni'verse. The basis of Stranger Things is the idea of an upside down world that exists just beyond our 'regular' world.

Being contrarian allows us the liberty to hold a wide set of views and not be bound by the compulsion of having one right answer or one right way of looking at things. Without being as definitive as agreement or disagreement, it allows for exploration of a range of options. Since it is different from being opposite to or being in opposition to, it allows for better discourse between people, who may hold contrary views to each other, without it becoming a conflict.

When we are being contrary, we are coming up with ideas which are unusual or pathbreaking. Any worthwhile invention was due to someone being contrarian.

In business too, this quality is very popular, especially since successful entrepreneurs like Peter Thiel have espoused the concept as essential for business. Thiel says:

“All unhappy companies are alike because they failed to escape the essential sameness of competition”.        

To be successful in business, a company needs to have figured out what it does that is contrarian to what countless others are doing.

To be a contrarian thinker requires conscious effort. And it’s hard to do because we are conditioned to follow the norm.

Imagine a room with a small door and a bigger exit. At the conclusion of a meeting, a set of people, finding the small door closest to them, move towards that exit. It’s likely that most people will gravitate towards that exit without conscious thought and compete to squeeze in through it, even though there is a bigger exit on the other side of the room.

Here’re a few things you can do to add value by being contrarian:

1.??????Belie expectations so you can make an impact: Like the teenager behaving with unexpected kindness, sometimes it’s good to behave contrary to expectations. If you are in a position of power, say as a boss or a client, most people don’t expect you to behave with kindness, but rather to exercise your power. In such a situation, paying attention, listening, and empathizing can have a greater impact simply because they are unexpected. If you are a habitually quiet person especially in team meetings, speaking up has power, because others don’t expect it of you. As a woman, when you behave contrary to expectations about how a woman at the workplace should behave, you create ripples, maybe even a splash.

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2.??????Be a ‘smart’ contrarian: Reject your dominant mental models and strive to develop a unique perspective, so that you can take better decisions. To do this:

a.??????Identify your dominant logic: Is it majority bias (if most people think this way, it must be right), stereotyping (“today’s generation is tech-savvy”) or culture (“It’s better to agree rather than question when a senior person is speaking”) [Chengwen Liu, HBR, 2021]

b.??????Widen your circle: most of us are influenced by the views of 5 close people. Seek out more connections and engage actively with them

c.??????Widen your source: we tend to derive our information and world views from select sources such as a favourite newspaper or tv channel, or a select few people at work. Watch news channels from other countries and see how differently they interpret the same event. Sit with different people at lunch and be surprised by how differently everyone experiences the organization.

?“Can you remember who you were

 before the world told you who

 you should be.”
 — Charles Bukowski
        

3.??????Become an Ubermensch so you can truly know yourself: Friedrich Nietzsche, like many thinkers, advocated self-discovery. He was the original proponent of contrarian thinking, rejecting herd-mentality as destructive to the development of an individual. To be an Ubermensch (Overman, akin to a superhuman), one of the things Nietzsche advocated was constant questioning.

a.??????Question your assumptions, about people, about a situation, about what works and what doesn’t

b.??????Question your beliefs about yourselves such as what you are or are not capable of; what your limits are; what your role is

c.??????Question what is considered ‘acceptable’ behavior in a situation such as in a meeting with the CEO

?But be comfortable not arriving at any one conclusion when you begin to question.

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4.??????Excavate the insight so that better ideas can emerge: Allow others to be contrarian. If team members question your views, work with them to unearth their reasoning. Whether their contrarian view is genius or anti-genius (i.e. contrary for the sake of being contrary or simply wrong), there is value in asking clarifying questions about their point. At the best, you may discover a wonderful new way of doing things, at the worst, your team members will learn that listening to contrarians is worth doing [Piezunka & Aggarwal, INSEAD]

Be a contrarian. Be an independent thinker. Be comfortable with holding multiple views about the same thing. Be comfortable with not having one definite answer for everything.

Let me know in the comments how you would like to be more of a contrarian.

Best,

Shraboni?