Do what feels wrong.
“Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.” ~ Saint Augustine
Years ago, I was gifted an awesome challenge: to reverse the mounting losses of a high-tech division of GE, and do it in 18 months (with no authority whatsoever). The problem seemed straightforward, and so did the solution (at least on paper). We achieved outstanding results, saving the business.
So began my first, real learning about human cognition and motivation. For as the poet John Keats wrote: “Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced.”
There’s a popular belief that human beings are rational creatures, carefully weighing objective facts before making decisions. It’s simply not true. Instead, we’re driven by our immediate perceptions and feelings, especially ones regarding our personal fears and desires. And so even with a seemingly flawless plan on paper, I was in for one hell of a struggle.
And that was because it felt wrong, to everyone. Like, backing up a boat trailer. Or informing elite engineers that their trivial rubber O-rings failed and caused the death of seven astronauts. To make matters worse, my solution was an assumption about a future outcome, and no one can guarantee anything about the future. Not even the simple act of backing up a boat trailer (I know that truth from experience as well).
Here’s the essential question:
Can you transcend what feels wrong… to you? Can you be in “uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason?” Can you hold your beliefs lightly, as working assumptions, and try to prove yourself wrong? And not through intellectualization, but through experimentation. Like a scientist. Because that’s the key to success today.
While everyone else is busy following their conditioned feelings, true innovators and leaders rebel against theirs. They deeply question what instinctively feels right and wrong. While most people do what’s easy, because it feels good, they do what’s hard because they know that others won’t. While others analyze opportunities to death, they jump off cliffs and build their wings on the way down. And that’s what sets them apart and lands them in unknown territory. What’s sometimes referred to as a “blue ocean.”
At the beginning of this piece, I called my past challenge a gift. And that’s because I experienced a profusion of negative feelings; fear, anger, doubt, rejection. Stimuli that forced me to pause and carefully choose my response. And I’m experiencing similar feelings right now, as I get ready to introduce my newly discovered philosophy to the world.
And so I’m trying really hard to remember that in my response to those feelings lies my growth, and my freedom. I hope you try hard to remember that truth as well.
Stay passionate!
