individuality

Image: Hat Tip to Charles Frith (Love your stuff)

Tom Peters famously said: “Go hire some freaks and fire all the “ruts” that got you into this mess.”

Nietzsche is quoted above.

As you might know, Nietzsche was off his rocker, but he was good. (Surely, he was a freak according to Tom Peters.)

When you ONLY esteem those who think like you, you never have the chance to objectively evaluate your ideas.

They grow outdated, they are just plain false, whatever — if they are wrong, you’ll never know because you only trust people who reinforce your ideas, not correct you. Challenge you. Make you smarter.

Can you imagine if teachers allowed students to go on making the same mistakes over and over again, never correcting them?

That’s happening at executive suites all day long

They say 2+2=5 and get a bonus at the end of the year.

Coddled, stubborn children who always think they are right become adults who act the same, never valuing  the truth, just their own opinion. Or the opinion of their peers. The people working for them don’t count because they’re not part of the club.

A sad, dark world indeed.

We should esteem all people based on honesty, compassion, intelligence, etc. regardless of whether or not they are self-affirming.

If John Mack would have listened to freaks, the financial crisis might have been avoidable.

If Obama would have listened to freaks, we might have more than two, not workable options to deal with the deficit.

If Apple would have listened to a freak, they might have…oh…iPod…iPhone…iPad. I guess they listened.

Hiring a cog might be the safe and predictable solution. If you want to fail and become obsolete.

For me, hiring a freak is the only way out.