Some of the greatest modern-day innovators—Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, the founders of Google—are far from foolhardy risk-takers they are often portrayed as.
Human beings are creatures of habit. That being the case, how do we break from our musty routines so that we can lead better, more enriching lives? In his new book, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, Adam Grant, a professor of management at Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, makes a strong case for the need to continuously cultivate habits that foster innovation and originality, not just for our career growth, but, more importantly, for our full growth as human beings.
It’s a fascinating book because it shows, based on his meticulous research, how some of the greatest modern-day innovators—Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, the founders of Google—are far from foolhardy risk-takers they are often portrayed as. They, in fact, tend to be rather conservative when it comes to taking risks.
Take Bill Gates. Most of us have heard the story of how he dropped out of Harvard to establish one of the most successful companies the world has seen. His example is often offered to back the notion that to make it big in any field you must be able to risk it all: it’s either success or bust. Yet very few of us know that Gates didn’t actually drop out of Harvard at first; he rather took a long leave of absence. He wanted to leave the option of going back to complete his degree if his nascent tech startup, Microsoft, somehow bombed.
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Moreover, Gates didn’t completely severe ties with Harvard until he had secured the support of some key investors for Microsoft. Before he left he made sure to cover all his bases—just in case. Grant shows that this kind of conservatism defines all the famous original thinkers, entrepreneurs, and anyone who has something new to contribute to any field. It’s easy to see that this conservative streak in ‘originals’ is universal.
Take our own Baburam Bhattarai. An early convert to communism, why did he need a PhD in architecture—of all disciplines—to pursue a career in politics? The answer, again, is pretty straight-forward: there was no way the young communist hothead could have foreseen he would one day go on to occupy the highest office in the land. He, like Bill Gates, needed a back-up plan. We all do.
Binod Chaudhary, easily Nepal’s most successful businessman, is also far from the maverick he is thought of as. One of my B-school teachers who worked with the CG chairman for a long time speaks of a man who carefully weighs every single one of his business decisions. He employs a legion of advisors who are tasked with meticulously evaluating pros and cons of all proposed business ventures. Yes, the final decision still rests with the big boss, but he seldom—if ever— makes an important business decision on the spur of the moment.
Ergo, originality and success does not necessarily come to the biggest risk-takers. In fact, Grant cites a number of studies that show that the greatest originals are conservatives in most areas of their lives. Even if they take risk, it’s a calculated one. But calculated conservatism alone doesn’t guarantee success. In some areas of professional life you need to be anything but conservative.
Grant finds that the number of truly great ideas is directly proportional to the number of ideas you can come up with. Today, we know Thomas Edition most famously as the inventor of the light bulb. But he had nearly 11,000 patents in his name, even though many of the resulting products—the automatic vote record, the electric pen—turned out to be epic failures.
Edition rightly believed that if he invented enough new things, some of them were bound to find some favor with the general public; it was a simple case of law of averages. This is why we need to continuously come up with new ideas: the good ones, the bad ones and the utterly ugly ones, it does not matter, so long as you have enough of them.
You need to be constantly challenged, too. Seek out your harshest critics and try to understand their point of view, Grant advises. The ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes is invaluable. But this is easier said than done. We increasingly tend to live in our own little silos: you follow (and meet) people you ‘like’ on Twitter and Facebook; those who most strongly differ with you are summarily ‘blocked’ from your life. But Grant says we should be doing just the opposite. Your strongest critics invariably offer you the most valuable ideas.
The gist of Grant’s book is that the right time to make changes is the moment you start feeling comfortable with the status quo. The mantra to fulfillment, in your professional career as in your personal life, is to keep tinkering with your life at the margins.
Bhattarai’s Naya Shakti might prove to be a disastrous failure for the chief ideologue of the Maoist war. But having done it all at least he won’t die wondering what might have been.
biswas.baral@gmail.com
