Fear of standing out

No one likes boring. We love extremes, instead. We are drawn to the different. The outstanding. The remarkable. But being different is scary. Is that a way to tame the fear of differentiating yourself?

There is an obvious benefit of becoming an outlier. You will be noticed and talked about. And since the word-of-mouth is the ultimate marketing tool of today, this is what you want. Look at Southwest Airlines with their policy of hiring remarkable employees to spice up the air travel. I am pretty sure that you wouldn’t forget if your safety instructions were rapped to you. Or if they were turned into a stand-up comedy. Yet, despite the obvious fame of such examples, not many companies follow. Why? Because becoming an outlier is scary. It is entering the uncharted territory. With no benchmarks. No examples to follow. No clear path to take.

Where does fear come from?

Like individuals, the organizations suffer from being afraid. To my knowledge the best description of this phenomenon is captured in “The war of art” by Steven Pressfield (don’t mix it up with the “Art of war” by Sun Tzu, which is a fascinating and generally relevant but not quite here book). Although, Pressfield writes about fear we experience as people, I sense that his ideas are equally relevant to organizations, which, at the end of the day, are construed of people, right?

Let me summarize the concept of fear we experience, or as it is called by Pressfield: Resistance. Resistance is a powerful force in the world that keeps us from reaching our potential. That makes us remain average. It is a force solely focused to distract us from following the path that is not the one of the, well, least resistance. Resistance is focused on short-term goals, instant gratification and immediate pleasure. It loathes long-term thinking, commitment of the heart and deep change. In other words, it will encourage doing more of the same and discourage choosing to do something different from the mainstream.

And here’s the trickiest thing of all: the more outlier-like thinking your organization will display, the stronger Resistance will be. It will take a form of your investors, employees, friends and family, you name it. If you choose to explore the uncharted territory, the new space to find your business differentiator, the more you can expect everyone trying to discourage you from doing that. This is why it is so hard to change any organization. As an individual you need to fight the world to change your ways. As an organization you will find the allies of Resistance both outside and inside. They will do whatever is in their power to keep you on the “safe” track. To make you stay average. To be more of the same. And yet, the report by Meaningful Brands clearly states:

“People wouldn’t care if 77% of brands disappeared today.”

Why wouldn’t they care? Because one brand is, in fact, not that much different than the other. If one brand of my jam is gone, there will be another one to choose from. If one mobile provider or an insurance company or a car manufacturer no longer exists, there soon will be another to replace it. Very likely as average as the previous one, so the difference will be not that big.

Outlier mindset

If Resistance is so strong, is there any point to fight it? Wouldn’t it be better to just give in and stay warm and comfortable? This, certainly, is an option. But it is a short-term option. Because sooner or later a new competitor will appear that will have more courage to make herself stand out. Win the hearts of customers. Create an emotional rather than only transactional bond with them. So, sure, you can keep on doing more of the same. But what if you don’t?

There are three main ingredients (three Ps, if you’s like) your organization needs to create the outlier mindset: Purpose, Passion and Patience. Let’s unpack them.

Purpose is nothing more than your vision: this idealistic rookie North Star you set for yourself to follow. You need to have your heart set 100% on that vision. And you need to believe that there is a path to reach that star. If not that path, then another. Believing in your Purpose will motivate you to keep on exploring and focusing on the progress rather than becoming discouraged that the ultimate goal is still so far away.

Purpose’s best friend is Passion. Passion helps you to neglected the fact that certain things or plans seemed impossible or really hard and decided to do the anyway. Passion makes you a little clueless with respect to how hard it might be to achieve your purpose. Which is really good, because, otherwise you might think the price to pay in terms of energy and effort might seem just too much to even try. And the only way to keep the desired level of passion is to not allow yourself to overthink the risks and difficulties you might find on your way. To find the mindset of an early explorers sailing into the unknown dreaming to discover the undiscovered. Being passionate is, in that sense, not a sign of madness but a sign of open curiosity.

Once you decide you want to be mad enough to follow the path of being different, the whole clue is to keep on moving. To stay on it. To not to stop. And the only tool you’ve got is to be patient. It is, in a way, a natural consequence of Purpose and Passion. It completes them. It is about finding the pleasure in the road and not the destination. It is giving yourself the time to travel, to fail and to succeed. It is allowing yourself the joy of every step on the way. Even if the shoes are pressing. Even if you are thirsty. Even if it gets scary. Patience is the appreciation for venturing on an adventure. With all its aspects. Good and bad. Patience is the means to survive the dip. And the Dip will come.

The Dip

It seems curious that so few companies become outliers, isn’t it? Surely, every single company out there must have thought even for a moment that they would like to become memorable. Innovative. Standing out. Yet, if we look only a few examples are out there that do that. Why? Because of the Dip. In his book “The Dip” Seth Godin explain that phenomenon as follows:

“Almost everything in life worth doing is controlled by the Dip. At the beginning when you first start something, it’s fun. […] Over the next few days or weeks, the rapid learning you experience, keeps you going. […] And then the Dip happens. The Dip in the long slog between starting and mastery. A long slog that’s actually a shortcut, because it take you where you want to go faster than any other path.”

“…the Dip is the secret to your success. The people who set out to make it through the Dip — the people who invest the time and the energy and the effort to power through the Dip — […] are breaking the system because, instead, of moving to the next thing , instead of doing slightly above average and settling for what they’ve got, they embrace the challenge.”

The Dip is the sole reason why so many organizations keep on giving up before they’ve reached their dreams. It is the moment when we think that there are too many obstacles, to many difficulties on the way to push through. This is the moment when most of the companies quit their vision and go back to keep on doing what’s safe instead of following their dream.

All three “P”s are the recipe to push through the dip. Why? Because they form the foundation for self-trust. Build the flanks against Resistance. Resistance hates Purpose and Passion. But the most it hates Patience. Patience makes it win the battles but loose the wars, while Purpose and Passion are the bullets defending your internal goal.

Why should want to become an outlier?

Yeah, right? If it is so tough, if you need so much strength to do so, why would you even want to try? Like I said at the beginning, you will be noticed and talked about. And you will be rewarded. If you dare to become the Number One it is likely that your reward will be 10 times as big as Number Two. To prove it to you, let me refer once more to Seth’s book “The Dip”. He shows there that the most favoured ice cream flavour in the world (according to the International Ice Cream Association) is vanilla. And it sells 4 times as well as the next flavour: chocolate.

This phenomenon happens not only with respect to ice cream flavours. Or words. Or the distribution of population between cities and rural areas. It also happens in business and it’s called Zipf’s Law. If you are first you will win big. If you are second, you still win but significantly less. And if you are third, fourth, etc. you just get a fraction of the success cake.

Why is it the case? As humans we want to have the guarantee of success. Why? Because our brains don’t want to waste energy on interactions that wouldn’t meet our expectations. If you tore your ligaments, you don’t want to go to whichever surgeon. You want the best. If you travel to a new place, you want to see the remarkable not the average there.And if you choose a product or a service, the similar sentiment is at play. You dream of choosing your ultimate best option. Sure, if you don’t have that option, you will choose among what’s available (this is why so much business is still running). But this relationship will remain transactions. And as soon as a remarkable player enters the market you won’t have any sentiment to switch. And, for sure, sooner or later, this player will show up. The thing is: it can be your competition or it can be you. You just need to decide.

________________________________________________________________

Aga Szóstek, PhD is an experience designer with over 19 years of practice in both academic and business world. She is an author of “The Umami Strategy: stand out by mixing business with experience design”, a creator of tools supporting designers in the ideation process: Seed Cards and the co-host in the Catching The Next Wave podcast.