Why Conformity in Business Isn’t Always a Good Thing (Unless You’re Building IKEA Furniture)

Family and friends have often laughed or sighed at my tendency to be contrary from time to time. Everyone is turning left - I’ll go right. You should really do this Mike. OK then, I’ll do something else. I’ve also dropped the odd incendiary device onto Facebook to see what reaction I might get. This rarely disappoints!

Here’s the thing. Mindlessly following the crowd and conforming to societal or corporate expectations and norms may well be the safe thing to do. But is it the right thing? Are we playing the game according to our own ‘rules’, or bending to the influence of others?

My perspective on this was magnified when one of the most wonderful human beings I’ve ever had the pleasure of spending time with, wrote a book called Life Without a Tie. Ray Martin took a 6-month sabbatical in 2005, shattered by divorce and the loss of his father. He let go of being a successful business leader to embark on a journey of reinvention. It turned out that life had another plan for Ray. His nomadic adventure unexpectedly lasted fourteen years!

There are many life lessons in his book, but my key takeout has been that living a life of conformity is what most of us do, either consciously or unconsciously. Yet we know that this is probably not serving us so well.

So, here’s a question for you.

Is your career tying you down? What if you were to let go?

Oftentimes in workshops with younger people in the earlier years of their career, I’ll ask ‘show of hands in the room - how many of you have got to the point where you’ve worked out that it’s OK to truly be yourself at work’? Not many hands get raised. Yet if / when this happens, everything changes for you in your working life, partly because now you’ve given yourself the opportunity to play the game according to your ‘rules’, not anybody else’s. To not conform in an environment of conformity.

In the world of business, conformity often gets a gold star. Everyone in matching blazers, nodding in unison in meetings, following ‘the process’, like it’s the secret recipe for KFC. On the surface, it looks neat and efficient - like synchronized swimming, but with spreadsheets.

So, what’s the problem? Well, too much conformity and you’re not swimming - you’re sinking. Fast.

Let’s be honest: conformity feels safe. No one ever got in trouble for following the rules, right? But if safety and sameness were the gold standard, we’d still be sending faxes and thinking dial-up internet was cutting-edge. The truth is, innovation doesn’t come from people who colour inside the lines. It comes from people who question whether the lines should be there at all. Or better yet, doodle all over the page and invent something new.

Think about it. If everyone in your company agrees all the time, you don’t have a team, you have a cult.

And cults, while committed, don’t exactly have a strong track record when it comes to long-term success.

Groupthink can be fatal for business. Without someone brave (or cheeky) enough to say ‘Umm, I don’t think this is a good idea’, bad decisions get rubber-stamped faster than a coffee loyalty card.

Let’s not forget the meeting phenomenon. Someone suggests an obviously terrible idea, say, launching a pet psychic app for turtles. But instead of healthy debate, the room goes eerily quiet. Then someone says, ‘interesting’, and suddenly everyone’s nodding because no one wants to be that person. You know, the buzzkill who brings logic to the table. But that person might just save your business from becoming the next cautionary tale on a business podcast.

Excessive conformity also has a way of vacuuming up creativity. Picture this. You hire a brilliant, slightly quirky new employee - let’s call her Sarah. She’s got wild ideas and a passion for solving problems in strange but effective ways. Then, six months later, Sarah’s wearing the same beige cardigan as everyone else and starts every sentence with ‘Just to echo what was already said…’. Congratulations. You’ve turned your innovator into a corporate parrot.

But here’s the thing. Business doesn’t have to be a parade of sameness. Companies that encourage individuality and risk-taking often find themselves ahead of the curve. They create cultures where people feel safe saying ‘Hey, what if we didn’t do things the way we’ve always done them’? And sometimes, this leads to breakthroughs. Or at the very least, fewer turtle psychic apps.

In short, a little bit of non-conformity can go a long way.

Sure, some processes need structure (no one’s suggesting you let Dave from Accounting freestyle your tax returns). But the best businesses strike a balance - enough order to keep the lights on alongside enough freedom to light a fire under someone’s big idea.

So, the next time someone says, ‘that’s not how we do things around here’, it might be your time to ask that simple, yet powerful question, ‘why’? In other words, don’t be tied down by shrinking into a lesser version of yourself because the body corporate tells you so. Man (or woman) up and be yourself. If it doesn’t make sense to you, speak up.

Conforming to the path of least resistance will leave you living a very ordinary life. It probably won’t serve your employer well either.

Mike