“Nothing
bound us to the firm but what had enticed many of us to apply: money and a
strange belief that no other jobs in the world were worth doing…By coming to
Saloman Brothers, we were doing only what every sane, money-hungry person would
do. If we were unable to buck convention
in our lives, would we be able to buck convention in the market? After all, the job market is a market.”
The
quote, written by Michael Lewis, in “Liar’s Poker,” illustrates a common flaw
amongst human beings, especially those endowed with the socioeconomic resources
to reach society’s upper-echelon most efficiently. There are certain preordained paths, scripted
sequences through the world that many of our most professionally mobile
citizens follow blindly. Indeed, they
are the professional equivalent of sheep at best, and lemmings at worst. I can recall my days in college, as virtually
every classmate aspired to law, medicine, consulting, high finance, or some
altruistic pursuit before returning to one of those four occupations or a
marriage to one of their members.
I
suppose, on the surface, such a trend is not disturbing. After all, civilization demands all of these
professions, albeit in potentially lower numbers. However, consider the great thoughts,
era-defining inventions, and paradigm-shifting philosophies. Each stemmed from an individual utterly
disinterested in the prevailing sentiments of the age hell-bent on charting
their own course. In fact, “groupthink,”
the phenomenon in which clusters of the like-minded congregate and mutually
reinforce their own ideas until the very notion of the existence of any
alternative becomes foreign, led to the subprime collapse. Mass agreement with minimal dissent is a
recipe for mediocrity at best and stagnation at worst. Of course, assurance that a deviant path is
the correct one is a cognitive process shared by innovators, entrepreneurs, and
horrifically brutal dictatorships.
Bucking
convention is a frightening proposition, if only because failure is accompanied
by the question, “what if I had just done what everyone else was doing?” Much like a coach who punts on 4th
and 1, knowing that a subsequent defeat will be blamed on his players, but a
loss following a deviant play-call will be assigned to the coach himself, there
is a great deal of comfort and defensibility in simply riding with the herd. Conversely, there is very little glory in so
doing.
Perhaps,
as a species, we are simply risk-averse in a manner which is truly
disadvantageous. This seems odd in that
our global exploration requires an intrepid spirit inconsistent with
risk-aversion. Our greatest figures are
almost without exception, exceedingly willing to put great amounts of
emotional, monetary, and physical in play for their cause. Though “greatness,” despite its nebulous
definition seems to demand a daring nature, survival may not. Evolution would seem to favor those willing
to maximize the odds of sending their genetic material onward – and that would seem consistent with
significant reluctance to take risks.
Yet, as a species as a whole, risk-taking by a substantial segment seems
to generate massive gains…though the risk taker often suffers on an individual
level. Perhaps what is ingrained by
evolution for individuals is counter-productive for the collective
accomplishment of the species?
Just another reason to deviate…
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