I have a rather peculiar and random routine that has no apparent value to it or reason behind it. Whenever I get a new pair of shoes, I rethread the laces so that the shoe for the right foot has the laces enter the eyelets from the top, and for the left shoe the laces go bottom up.
The other day as I was explaining to my eight-year-old daughter why I was re-lacing a new pair of shoes, she rolled her eyes with the look that said, “Dad, you’re weird”. She’s probably accurate in her assessment. But I don’t plan to curtail this peculiar practice.
For me its something that’s privately distinctive and I enjoy its uniqueness.
After watching Diana’s reaction, it made me wonder, “Shouldn’t we actually be brave enough to embrace peculiarities?” After all, your brilliance is in your distinction, not in commonalities.
Often, CEOs ask me, “How do I compare to other CEOs?” with the hope that since I spend lots of times with a variety of CEOs, I can assess if they are similar to others. They want to know are they like the others.
But why would you want to be like somebody else? For the simple reason that it reduces your chance of success. It’s really frustrating when people try to be normal or like others. The law of averages plays against you: very few people succeed, few people stand out from the pack, few people dare to be different.
So, why would you want to be like everyone else?
During a speech for a group of young but promising leaders, I showed them three pictures: one of an Olympic gold medal winner, spelling bee champion and an Oscar winner. After giving them a minute to absorb the photos, I asked, “What do you see?” They responded: winners, champions, success, smiles, hard work, and dedication.
Then I said, “While all of your responses are accurate, I see something entirely different.” I see the disadvantage of being normal. There is only one person who wins the spelling bee, one Oscar winner in a category each year, and one person at a time standing on the platform to be awarded a gold medal.
The normal person isn’t on that stage. He’s sitting in front of his TV watching somebody else succeed.
Normal people aren’t the champions of our world. They’re the spectators.
If you desire to be like everyone else and be accepted, then pursue normalcy. There are benefits of being normal — safety, acceptance and ease of life — but greatness and success are not among them. If you want to be a winner and succeed, then you need to break from the packs.
Success by definition means not being normal. Winners are outliers from the normal pack. They are in their own separate category distinct from the ordinary people.
We immediately identify a champion as someone who is great or who succeeds at being different from the rank-and-file. We note the distinctions, the rare characteristics of people who are different. There even seems to be a secret admiration for their willingness to break from the pack.
But there is something common about champions, each one discovered his uniqueness (and hopefully it’s more than they way they lace their shoes) and embraced it. A champion is very comfortable being unique. Instead of asking “How do I compare to other CEOs?”, discover how you’re unique.
I like to work with executive with extreme strengths and am even comfortable if they have pronounced weaknesses. Yet, the problem is that the HR system focuses on finding what’s similar and common between leaders, which results in rejecting the genius and leaders who are different. The outcome of this practice is having a company full of normal leaders who are average.
It’s doubtful that very many of my clients would fit the profile to be hired by their own company as the profile is built for normal, not brilliance.
Would your company hire a leader who when given an order to take two steps to the left responded by ordering his troops to take two steps to the right? If not, you would have passed over His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice-President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, as that is what he did when Sergeant-Major Benney gave him that exact order.
Part of his uniqueness is seeing what’s possible and instinctively deciding how to get there. What makes you unique?
The writer is a CEO coach and author of “Leadership Dubai Style”. Contact him at tsw@tommyweir.com
