Unblock your uniqueness or be a low-cost competitor

 Approximately the first twenty years of your life, parents and education are pressing you to conform. Conformity to culture, to orders from folks higher in the hierarchy, and to the way to dress, are just some examples. Not all conformity is bad. Generally speaking I support conformity to laws and being polite (and kind) to other people.

This conformity leads to group thinking and to copying others. The dominant force is sameness. Look respectively at high school students, members of a sports team, or employees of a government institution, they all look the same. The best practices approach in business has resulted in companies that are only different from competitors in name. The products and prices are similar. What is the real difference between Burger King and McDonalds, or between Air France and British Airways? Except for a bit of marketing, they are the same. 

Standardization has infiltrated many aspects of doing business. That is why full-scale automation is a logical next step. A.I. will even have a bigger impact by taking over many of the standardized tasks currently being done by humans. 

When automated processes are the norm there is not much left over to differentiate yourself, both as an individual and as a business. 

Then you or your business becomes a commodity and you compete only on price (and logistics). From that point onwards, it is a race to the bottom and you will compete globally. That is why large companies (who also have the deepest pockets) like Amazon and Alibaba are winning. 

As an individual worker, let’s say a copywriter or digital marketer, already freelancers are competing globally. And the one who can afford the lowest rates is winning.

The goal of conformity is to suppress uniqueness and to replace it with sameness. You are a sales representative 2 or 3, and not John or Kate who happens to love selling.

When I watch commercials on TV, I mostly can remember the ‘plot’ or the funny aspects, but I can totally not recall the name of the company or the product. They are using a marketing sauce to hide the sameness in their products.

Sameness ultimately leads to a ‘winner takes it all’ outcome at the business level and boredom or unemployment at the worker level.

Fortunately, there is an alternative. 

The alternative is to release your uniqueness. Every person, every worker is unique. Every business is unique, because any organization is a collective of unique individuals.

Each one of us is a unique dynamic mix of roles, values, qualities, knowledge, skills, hobbies, activities, experiences, and bodily cells. 

As that uniqueness has been suppressed for such a long time, it takes time and effort to release your uniqueness. I describe the steps you can take in my book ‘From Fitting In to Flying Out’. 

Look at the people you admire the most, it is very likely that you are attracted to (parts of) their uniqueness. 

In the real world, each high performer is unique and distinct and excels because that person has understood his or her uniqueness and cultivated it intelligently. ~ Buckingham/Goodall

Now, you might say that you are replacing one problem (being conditioned by suppressing capabilities) with another problem (finding my uniqueness). That could become the same pitfall as finding your purpose or your passion. It is not an act of looking outside, it is looking inside. This process is the same for individuals and for organizations. A very helpful approach to discovering your uniqueness is suggested by Scott Adams (from the Dilbert cartoon).

“If you want something extraordinary [in life], you have two paths:

1. Become the best at one specific thing.
2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.

The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try.

The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort. In my case, I can draw better than most people, but I’m hardly an artist. And I’m not any funnier than the average standup comedian who never makes it big, but I’m funnier than most people. The magic is that few people can draw well and write jokes. It’s the combination of the two that makes what I do so rare. And when you add in my business background, suddenly I had a topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it.”

So, what are your two or three things where you are very good at? Please remember that can be anything, ranging from cooking pasta, to reviving plants, to journaling, to building spreadsheets.

Any business, any organization can (and should) also be unique. That requires both a recognition that people make the real difference as well as a change in culture and operational practices. 

Enabling the release of uniqueness requires freedom to think differently, to ask critical questions, and courage to share feelings and emotions. 

Crucial is also to stimulate failure. If people get punished by sharing unique ideas they will immediately stop sharing. And that will kill your business as well as the employee’s satisfaction.

What steps are you taking to release uniqueness, individually and collectively?