It may be faster and easier and bring in more money ... to teach everybody the same, build stuff the same, and follow all the same rules daily. But where will it lead?
My friend and fellow writer Galba Bright raised the idea in a comment on my site this morning – and that led to a bigger question. What does our growing herd mentality cost?
Do you find yourself longing for more of what Helen Keller spoke for … when she said … “Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing at all.”
Let’s look again to creative geniuses who feared the herd mentality for its capability of sinking a nation and zapping people's reflective power. Look at wars that we wage again and again – and you’ll see what I mean. Only a great deal of innovation can add new feet to the best ideas out there … and that takes developing and nurturing individual creativity.
To Einstein and other creative builders …the herd mentality….
1. Stifles the nurturance of creativity and invention.
2. Hands money to big business at the expense of humanity.
3. Creates rifts from growing gaps between haves and have-nots.
4. Hands decision making to a few who control and manipulate.
5. Costs the nation its place globally in innovation and discovery
No question … there’s fast money in getting the crowd to pay its dollar into one fat coffer … for fair to middlin' results. How so?
Look around at workers in your firm ... who tread water or protect their turf ... and you may spot your own herd. My concern is … What are we buying in the end – by selling our brains to be rewired into herd mentality? What do you think?
Interesting you only see the downsides of "herd" mentality; the upside actually shapes just about everything we value around us. You can't just switch this part of our nature off. Instead, why not try to work with it...?
Posted by: Mark | September 21, 2007 6:11 AM | Permalink to Comment