Conventional Wisdom Can Be a Spoiler

Source: CBS News

“A generally accepted theory or belief.”

Conventional people produce conventional advice and that conventional advice becomes conventional wisdom. The point is if you want to follow conventional wisdom, you will end up having a conventional life. If you want to have an extraordinary life, you need to follow the extraordinary advice.

It is the followers of this world who rely on assumptions, not the leaders. Conventional wisdom is the received opinion of ideas or explanations generally accepted by the public/or by experts in a particular field. It is something generally accepted view of it.

Conventional wisdom is the common idea which is generally accepted as true, for which most of the people agree and use for their everyday decisions in life.

But we are actually not following our decisions, our own energy to our advantage, instead we try to fit someone else's mold for what success will look like, even though we are not him/her. Like your boss is shooting down ideas, or surprise algorithm changes on social media, or a podcaster whose dream just keeps ignoring your outreach.

Conventional wisdom turns intelligent minds into Social Idiots. These are the ideas so accepted that they go unquestioned. Some say Earth is flat, and millions also believed that Earth is the center of the universe.

Just because millions of people believe that doesn't mean it is true. People who go along with conventional wisdom are not necessarily fools, they may not have been exposed to the truth.

Some Ways to Break Conventional Wisdom

1. Don’t just stand there! Do Something

2. If the plan doesn’t seem to be working, change directions

3. Stay informed, ignore the voice

4. Don’t just blindly follow the shorthand of business

5. Don’t adopt the subtleties and nuances that will give you a pause in your thoughts of what you are doing.

In the constant push to get everyone going in the same direction which is a critical component of leadership trap, you will start valuing alignment over insight. What's the point of having everyone running in the same direction with the same mind, with a narrower concept?

Protect yourself from experts through contrarian thinking. Conventional Wisdom is often very conventional thinking. Before accepting opinions as truth, think through the issues yourself. Don't just look for agendas but look for logic on your own.

Reasons Why We Cling to Conventional Wisdom

1. Pike syndrome-feeling of powerlessness which creates the barriers for contextualizing a best practice or new ideas, which usually happen by repeated negative events.

2. The foraging choice-when currently available, a known option must be weighed against unknown, alternative options. This happens when we are stressed, so we exploit what we are doing currently. 

It happens when we don't understand our environment and revert back to our current position because we can't articulate our aspirations which combine both the intent for the future and hunger of today.

3. Cultural Fluency- the behavior when the world unfolds according to the expected norms. In our work, we simply can’t afford to make decisions when we feel helpless, nervous because of foraging choice or mindless because of cultural norms, at least not if we hope to push beyond conventional thinking to be more creative.

So, to make better decisions, we need to ask better questions. Remember, finding best practices isn’t the goal. Finding the best approach for you is.

Written by - Parul Verma

Edited by - Anusha Vajha