If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But ...

If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good." - Thomas J. Watson, Jr.

 

Story Line:

History is filled with stories of people and organizations who have lived upto the message of either part of above quote. FR has covered many such stories about people and organizations. Two notable ones in organizational area were, "Secrets of World's longest surviving companies" (published before FR went on web so link not available) and "Where are they now?" http://fridayreflections.typepad.com/weblog/2007/03/where-are-they-.html.

There are two types of situations that drives conformity behavior. One situation is where one does not want to ruffle any feathers, in other words just play it safe. Follow whatever rules that are laid down even if they do not make any sense any more, maintain status quo and count the time.
 
The other situation is where a person or organization has been very successful with one approach and a set of rules. But the very success blocks their vision to new ideas for shaping the future. "The way we were" and "Yesterday once more" are themes prevalent in this situation. It is hard for them to break inertia of old ways.
 
But then, the most admirable are the ones who have refused to get into this trap and continuously reinvented themselves or the ones who got trapped but recognized it and made efforts to get out of it. Most of the people who have reignited themselves or their organizations are controversial (have to be to break conformity) so it is understandable if one has a strong feelings about them one way or the other.
 
Here is a recent CNN interview with Paolo Coelho that shades light about such people. Again, you may not agree with everything he says but still there are many gold nuggets in there, advice about raising children is also applies to growing employees.
 
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2009/10/26/connector.paulo.coelho.cnn.html
 

Reflection:

I started my career in 1975 on Middle Field Road in Mountain View California. There were close to 100 companies in two blocks area at that time.  Most of them had great products and growing very fast at the time. But many companies became victims of their success and got complacent. New ideas were rejected, any one who brought competitive information that looked better than their own were ruled out or disciplined (still not as bad as Ancient Empires where people used to get executed for such noble acts).

While 99 of them perished, one of them is around and has become one of world's leading company. Secret, in my opinion: Acknowledging competitors as real and good; and getting aggressive to get better than them. Like world's longest lasting companies, already reinventing itself three times in it's young life.

Comments

[Vik]

Nothing stays the same. either it gets better or it gets worse.
I know some of those 99.

[Friend from East Coast]

In this life, there are times when the people will tell you that 2 + 2 = 5, in fact, the whole world may tell you that 2 + 2 = 5, but in your mind, you know it is 4. You may be totally alone in this understanding and sometimes, that just has to be enough.