In Praise of Dissenters and Non-Conformists

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Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast. From Harvard Business Review, I'm Sarah Greencott. Michael. Today I'm talking with Adam Grant, Wharton professor and author of the new book How Non Conformists Move the World. Adam, thank you so much for talking with us today.

Thanks for having me, Sarah.

So there's a number of interesting ways in the book that you talk about the science of people who are non conformists. And before we get into that, I want to talk a little bit about the people who are more likely to be conformists. I think we have a sort of negative connotation sometimes when we talk about people who conform. But is that fair? Is that unfair? Does everyone sort of play a part? You know, before we get into the nonconformists, tell us a little bit about people who conform.

Yeah, I think conformity is dangerous because it means following other people. Not because you believe in their ideas or agree with them, but because you want to fit in instead of standing out. And look, every pioneer needs settlers, every leader needs followers. But I want people, when they choose to march in line with someone else, to do it because they actually feel that the idea makes sense, not because they're afraid of rocking the boat.

Yes, I think that's a great point. Interestingly too, I noticed in one section of the book you talk about how people in the middle of their career or sort of organization level that those people, middle management, is more likely to be conformist. If I'm saying this right, because the pressures to conform there are stronger than when you're brand new or when you're super powerful. Tell us a little bit about why that's the case.

Yeah, this middle status conformity effect is pretty widely demonstrated. So the idea is that if you're at the very bottom of a hierarchy, then you have nothing to lose by speaking up or bringing new ideas to the table. Because there's nowhere to fall from the bottom if you're at the top. If you're a leader, you've actually earned the license to think differently. It's called idiosyncrasy credits. And the idea is because of what you've accomplished and the position you've attained, people will tolerate a little bit of unusual thinking. But in the middle, it hurts a lot to take a risk because you've worked really hard to climb to that position you've achieved. And it's Very easy to focus on all the reasons that an idea will fail and make you look bad as opposed to thinking about its potential.

Well, so give us a little bit of insight then into what you found about how non conformists work. Like, I think we all have in our heads an image of nonconformists. And that's, from what I understand of what you've written, that's probably not true. So tell us a little bit about why that sort of myth of the nonconformists isn't really real.

Yeah, I was really surprised to discover that the original non conforming people in the world were not who I thought they were. It turns out that they procrastinate a lot, just like the rest of us. They hate taking risks, they feel a ton of doubt and fear and they have lots and lots of bad ideas, which sounds a lot like me. So why does the myth persist? I think we like to tell these heroic stories, right, of Bill Gates dropping out of college and going for broke to start Microsoft. And we leave out the part where instead of just dropping out of Harvard, he takes a leave of absence just in case he wants to return. He has a year of software sales already under his belt and his parents are backing him financially. Doesn't sound like a big risk taker anymore, does he?

Well, it's interesting too because I think we have this kind of, as you say, like heroic image of these people who are sort of risking it all. That makes a better story, but it doesn't actually seem to lead to better results.

That's right. There's a bunch of evidence that goes directly counter to the idea that if you want to be an entrepreneur or do anything original, you need to be a big risk taker. My favorite study, it's a nationally representative study of entrepreneurs in the US and what you see is the ones who are big risk takers, they quit their jobs and they go all in on their startups. The people who are a little bit more hesitant and cautious, they say, you know what, I'm going to hang on to my day job and I'm going to start a business on the side as a hobby. And they are 33% less likely to fail than the ones who go all in.

So one of the other interesting points about entrepreneurs that you bring up in the book, you have some great examples of entrepreneurs who sort of got people to invest in their company by listing all the reasons that those investors should not invest. Why is it a good strategy? Whether you're an entrepreneur or anyone trying to get buy in to Start with all the sort of negatives or the skepticism.

Well, the example that jumped out at me was Rufus Griscom. He starts a parenting website called Babel where he wants to give people honest information about what it's really like to have kids. And he goes to investors and he says, here are three reasons you should not invest in my company. And he walks away with over $3 million in funding that year. So part of this is an attention grabbing device. It's unexpected. You don't normally hear entrepreneurs telling you the reason to not invest. But he also shows that he's balanced, self critical, and he makes it harder for investors to think of their own objections. They start going through their list of reasons to consider walking away from this deal. They're like, wow, he covered two of my three big concerns. And they get into this joint problem solving session instead of trying to show him how smart they are. And look, I'm not saying you should always tell people all the reasons not to support you, but I think this is something we were trained to do. When we study, debate or even writing, you're supposed to address counter arguments, but we forget to do it when we're pitching ideas and we end up just looking like Pollyanna's. So I think there's a time and a place to say, look, you know, I believe this idea has real promise. Here are the drawbacks and here's why I think the strengths outweigh the limitations.

Anyway, so it's interesting because I think sometimes when we try to do that in a group setting, one way around that issue of sort of everyone being too Pollyanna ish is to appoint a person, a specific person, the so called devil's advocate. And we have written a lot about this in HBR and sort of talked a lot about it. But you also have some evidence in the book that this isn't always the best way to combat groupthink. Tell me a little bit about why that approach doesn't work and maybe some of the other myths about groupthink.

So there's 40 years of research on devil's advocates, and what you see consistently is that they tend not to work very well. For one, when people are assigned to play the devil's advocate role, they don't argue forcefully enough. They're like, okay, I'm going to represent this uncomfortable opinion. And then I'm going to go right back to the majority where I already stood. And then two, the audience knows they're just playing a role. So they hear the argument and they think to themselves, well, you don't really believe that, do you? And groups end up becoming, if anything, a little bit more convinced of their original opinions when somebody plays devil's advocate. What this research shows is that instead of assigning a devil's advocate, you can get the benefit by unearthing a devil's advocate. So you have to find an authentic dissenter who genuinely disagrees and invite that person into the conversation. So it's about looking for the silent minority and giving them the floor. And a lot of leaders say, well, that sounds fun, but what if they're wrong? And the good news is that dissenting opinions are useful even when they're wrong. The increased likelihood that a group is going to go back to the drawing board and say, let's re examine our assumptions and decision making criteria and ultimately reach either a better or more creative solution. So you need to find those people who really disagree and give them a chance to get their voices heard.

And what about some of the other issues with groupthink, like the myths that persist around it? This is just a topic we've come back to over and over again. And I was really amazed that some of the stuff we've published, you know, may not actually be the sort of latest thinking on this topic anymore.

Yeah, I guess we have groupthink about groupthink, so meta groupthink. I found this to be really surprising. You can look at different ways of going about hiring. So if you look at Silicon Valley startup founders, for example, you find that some of them hire on skills looking for people who have certain knowledge and capabilities. Some hire on star potential, they try to get the smartest people or the fastest learners. And then a third group hires on Culture Fit to say, look, what we really want is people who share our values. And when you track a couple hundred Silicon Valley startups across the.com boom and bust, what you see is the ones that hire on Culture Fit early on are less likely to fail and they're more likely to go public. And then after that, they grow at much slower rates than their peer companies. So hiring on Culture Fit is good early on, but dangerous over time. And the reason is that when you hire on Culture Fit, you bring in people who tend to think exactly the same way that you do. It's code for, okay, I'm going to have people who share my values. And that means weeding out cognitive diversity. So I think that we should stop hiring on Culture Fit and start hiring on cultural contribution. It's a brilliant idea from Diego Rodriguez at ideo who says, look, instead of trying to bring in people who resemble exactly what your culture already stands for. Why don't you figure out what's missing from your culture and then place a premium on that?

That's a really interesting idea and it's kind of a nice segue, actually, to one of the other things I wanted to ask you, which is we've talked a little bit about cognitive diversity, but I also wanted to be sure to discuss other kinds of diversity because I think, you know, you've written a lot and you've researched a lot how experiences of work differ for women and minorities. You've co authored a number of pieces in New York Times with Sheryl Sandberg on these topics. I'm wondering, how does being a nonconformist differ if you're not from the dominant group?

Well, it can go one of two ways. On average, it's harder because oftentimes non dominant groups are stereotyped as lacking power. And when you speak up with a suggestion, it's easy to get seen as too aggressive when you're just bringing an idea to the table. That makes it especially important to show how your suggestion is going to serve the group and not just your own individual interest. On the other hand, though, there is a little bit of evidence suggesting that sometimes there is a little bit of extra leeway that people give double minorities. So you see this with studies of African American women, for example, who are less likely to get backlash when they speak up assertively than African American men or white women. And the reason is literally people don't know what stereotypes to apply. So when an African American woman speaks up, the question is, well, should I judge this against African American stereotypes or against female gender stereotypes? And that creates a little bit of extra flexibility, it seems. Now I think that it's a travesty that people use these stereotypes at all. And I think that on average, the disadvantages of being a member of one of these minority groups dramatically outweigh the advantages. But I do think we need to understand those rare circumstances where, you know, it's not always a liability to come from a group that's not in power.

I wonder if this at all relates to some of the other research that you mentioned in the book. And this was just a short part of it, but it was so interesting to me. There was a study on people who used the default Internet browser in their computer versus one of the ones you have to go off and downloading sort of get specially, you know, sort of like using IE as opposed to Chrome or something like that. And it was like the people who had to work slightly harder to get their browser were better in all kinds of ways.

Yeah, this is fun. I did not expect to see any evidence that Chrome and Firefox users were better at their jobs and stayed 15 longer than Internet Explorer and Safari users. And people hear that and they're like, so I just, if I want to get better at my job, I should just download a different browser. No, it's about how you got the browser. So Internet Explorer and Safari come preinstalled on your computer, and if you're someone who uses them, you might have tended to accept the default. If you're a Chrome or Firefox user, you had to stop and ask, is there another browser out there? And take a tiny bit of initiative to explore that. And that becomes a bit of a window into how you behave at work. That the kinds of people who upgrade their browsers or download a new one are also more likely to ask, is there a better way to do this job? Are there practices around here that don't make sense that I could improve or fix?

Yeah. And I guess the connection back to the diversity finding, at least in my mind, was just this idea about not accepting the default and having to work just a little bit harder, which I think is something that a lot of women and minorities may resonate with.

Yeah. And I think it's unfortunate, actually, that if you look at all these studies of system justification, one of the things you see is that often it's the people who are most disadvantaged by a system that are the least likely to fight it because they want to believe in a just world and they have a hard time accepting that the world would treat them unfairly. And they walk away thinking, I just don't deserve to be treated better. And obviously that can rob them of the creative energy or the moral courage to say, I need to do something about this injustice. So, yeah, I think that oftentimes people do have to work a lot harder when they come from a disadvantaged background. And I would love to see us change the way that organizations run so that they're not discouraged from doing so.

Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit more about kind of what it feels like to be a nonconformist in an organization. I mean, is it always inherently uncomfortable in some way?

No, it depends a lot on the culture. Right. There are cultures where conformity is the new non conformity, where everyone is trying to be original. This is common in creative companies. And it's rare to see people who like and follow rules. There's One study across industries that I found deeply disturbing, which was you asked people about their biggest idea or most important suggestion, and 85% of them stayed silent, never spoke up about it. So why were they quiet? Well, one reason is fear. They're afraid of getting some kind of punishment. They're afraid that they're going to have some kind of career setback. But maybe even more than fear, what you hear is futility. People say, you know, I don't necessarily think anything bad is going to happen to me for speaking up. I just don't think anyone's going to care and listen to my idea and make sure that it gets implemented. And, you know, I think that in organizations where fear and futility loom large, it's incredibly hard to be a nonconformist.

So how might you, as a manager, thus get better at eliciting those ideas from people and sort of making nonconformity more safe?

Well, I think one of the things you do is you actually evaluate people on whether they speak up and bring suggestions to the table. There's a great example of this at the hedge fund Bridgewater, which has a core principle saying that no one has the right to hold a critical opinion without speaking up about it. And in your performance evaluations and in the real time feedback that anyone in the company can give you, you're actually vetted on how often you disagree productively and you fight for right, even when it might be uncomfortable or unpopular. You even see this in the hiring process where people are asked questions like, what would you do to improve this hiring process? What do you like and not like about our interview? And if they don't challenge it, then they're not going to be necessarily the best contributors to a culture that values dissent and disagreement. So I think that that's one step. The other thing that I like to see leaders do is I like to see them be more upfront about their own weaknesses. Tom Garrity is such a cool example of this. He was running a software company called Index Group, and he was worried that as he climbed to the top, he would say, good morning, and people would respond. Great point. He decided he needed to put himself in front of a bit of a firing squad. So he called on all hands and he asked the consultant to criticize him in public, in front of his entire staff. And he sat there and listened and took some notes and said, I really appreciate the feedback. Here's what I'm going to do to try to improve upon these things. And one, it signaled to everybody in the company that he was open to suggestions and two, it encouraged people to start giving each other that kind of feedback because their boss had modeled it. I'm not saying that every leader should go to that extreme, but I think by showing in at least a small group that you're open to suggestions, that goes a long way.

Well, it's interesting, Adam. Some of this stuff sounds like it's like the graduate level seminar stuff for leaders. This is not like, oh, you're a new manager 1011 how to give feedback. This is like for people who really have a gift as leaders, it sounds like, I mean, how can a normal manager that's maybe not a terrible manager but not a great manager, is there hope for those people to sort of embrace some of this stuff?

Yeah, I think obviously it's easier to do these things if you're already perceived as competent and you're respected. But I think even new managers and leaders can take a little bit of a page out of the playbook of some of these leaders. Another favorite example is Anita Kron Trosseth who was the managing director of HP Norway. And when she came in she was managing multi country, multi function operation and she was worried that she wasn't hearing a lot of good ideas and suggestions. So she started a little initiative called Speed Date the Boss. And she invited anyone to come and talk with her for five minutes and she asked them what's working, what's not and what's the biggest contribution that you'd like to make here outside of the scope of your job. And people really prepared for those meetings because it was their chance to get heard by a senior leader. And she found that she was able to reach hundreds of people that way and do it pretty efficiently. And it sent a very clear message that she was open to ideas and suggestions.

That's really interesting if you're listening to this and you're sort of realizing I'm just really more comfortable conforming, like this sounds great, but like this is not me. Is there a way that we can make ourselves a little bit more non conformist?

Yeah, of course there is. I think the place to start is to say, look, we all have ideas for improving the world around us and so often we don't act on them because we're afraid of looking stupid or getting ridiculed. But in the long run, our biggest regrets are not the actions we took, they're the actions we failed to take. They're the chances not taken. And this is something I saw across. I talked to Larry Page, Elon Musk a number of blue chip entrepreneurs who said, you know, I was afraid of failing too, but I was even more afraid of failing to try. And this was such a worthwhile idea or such an important problem that I had to give it a shot. And I think by remembering that, you know, our long term regrets are the errors of omission, not the errors of commission, it's a lot easier to say, you know what? This is worth making an effort at least.

Okay, that's wonderful. I have one more question for you. If you are a nonconformist with tons of great ideas, but you work in a company where people just are not interested and you really have to expend a lot of political capital to even get the most basic suggestions heard, much less adopted, should you just leave that company or is there a way that you can sort of stay where you are but have more of an impact with the sea of conformity around you?

Well, a lot of that depends on three things. Your control, your commitment, and your alternatives. If you don't have other options, it's hard to walk away. And then if you do, the question is, do you feel that you can make a difference? That's the control part. And then do you care enough to try? That's the commitment part. And you know, when those feelings start to wane, a lot of people do begin to look elsewhere. I think, though, before we walk away, one of the things we ought to do is rethink who we take our suggestions to. So there's a lot of evidence that middle managers, as we talked about, are pretty risk averse and its peers, fellow creators and leaders who are a couple levels up that are more receptive to new ideas. The other thing is, a lot of us make the mistake of going to the most agreeable people in our organizations. We have an idea and we want the people who are going to have our backs and be supportive and friendly. But they are often our worst advocates because they like harmony. And although they may cheerlead in our conversation together, they're not going to necessarily go and rock the boat when talking to other people. It's actually the disagreeable colleagues and managers who are sometimes the best advocates because they will tear your idea apart in service of trying to make it better. And then if you can convince them that it's worthwhile, they will run through walls for you. So I would look for those people who are skeptical, critical, challenging, but care deeply about making the organization better. And they are some of your best allies.

Oh, Adam, that's fantastic. Thanks again. This was Great.

Thank you, Sarah. Such a pleasure.

That was Adam Grant, professor at Wharton and author of the new book Originals. For more, including his HBR article that touches on many of these topics, go to hbr. Org.