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I often come across many news articles and videos that highlight the lives of innovators, leaders and entrepreneurs. And many times, these articles seem to build an image of these change agents being cut from a different cloth.
– That some people are innately more creative, while most others have very few original thoughts.
– That some people are born to be leaders, and the rest are followers.
– That these leaders are fearless, take huge risks and single mindedly focus on their vision to make their ideas a reality.
Adam Grant’ book The Originals disproves proves many of these assumptions.
My notes on a few myths and contradicting examples Adam provides in the book – that were particularly thought provoking!
1) The first myth we hear often is that innovators/people who go on to reform industries are successful since childhood. That they are geniuses who have a series of achievements to their name since childhood.
“Child prodigies, as it turns out, rarely go on to change the world. Majority of the times, the ones who go on to truly change the world tend to be the teacher’s least favorite in class, not the topper but an average student.”
The main reason for this that Adam’s research found was that –
Average students have faced failures through their life. They are not hindered by something called achievement motivation – the more you value achievement, the more you come to dread failure. Not having the obsession to achieve, leaves you more open to trying new ideas and eventually may lead you to a breakthrough idea.
2) The second myth is that greatest creators/change agent are extremely sure about the actions they need to take, have a strong conviction and charge with full steam to realize their original ideas.
On the contrary, it turns out that many of history’s change agents, have actually been coaxed into leadership positions.
A few examples:
a) In the years leading up to the war, George Washington was mostly just focused on managing his wheat, flour, fishing and horse breeding business. He joined the cause to fight the British only after John Adams nominated him as the commander in chief of the army. Washington later wrote, “I used every endeavor in my power to avoid taking up this position.
b) Nearly 2 centuries later, Martin Luther King Jr was apprehensive about leading the civil rights movement; his dream was to be a pastor and a college president. When a group of civil rights activists gathered to form the Montgomery Improvement Association and launch a bus boycott, one of the attendees nominated King as the president of the association. Martin Luther King Jr reflected much later on this and said “It happened so quickly that I did not even have time to think through. It is probable that if I had time, I would have declined the nomination.
Even though they may possess qualities of natural leaders, many of history’s icons were lifted up and nominated by peers and followers to take a stand and lead.
3) The third myth: To be an original, you need to take radical risks
We believe that change agents/entrepreneurs are wired to embrace uncertainty. We constantly hear about successful entrepreneurs having the audacity to drop out of school, quit their full time job, go for broke to bring their vision into existence.
In a fascinating study, management researchers tried to answer a simple question – When people start a business, are they better off keeping or quitting their day jobs?
If you think like most people, you’ll predict a clear advantage for the risk takers. Yet, the study showed the opposite. Entrepreneurs who kept their day job had 33% lower odds of failure than those who quit.
Some examples of this:
a) The founder of Nike, Phil Knight started selling running shoes out of the trunks of his car in 1964, yet kept working as an accountant for the next 5 years.
b) Although google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page figured out how to dramatically improve internet searches in 1996, they didn’t go on leave from their graduate studies at Stanford until 1998. Infact they even tried to sell google for less than 2 million dollars because they were concerned that it was distracting them from their PhD research. Luckily for them, the potential buyer declined to buy google.
Having backup plans gives founders the courage to base their business on the unproven assumptions and improvise their ideas.
It allows to to take calculated risks and build businesses that last. If you’re a freewheeling gambler/huge risk taker, you are more likely to build a company that is far more fragile.
To summarize the 3 points I covered:
1) You do not have to be a genius to to change the world or transform industries.
2) The greatest creators/change agents are not necessarily the ones that charge with full steam to realize their original ideas. On the contrary, many of them have actually been coaxed into leadership positions.
3) Most founders and entrepreneurs who build a legacy do not take radical risks. They take calculated risks yes, but they also initially ensure that they have a safety net to fall back on.
The above is just a small blurb of my notes from on the initial topics covered in the book. The rest of the book is fantabulous as well!
