MASSES.

Hello dear reader - welcome to this week's Wednesday Weekly.

We're a species that loves fads.

We get distracted by new and shiny things; what psychologists call 'the magpie effect'.

If you've ever wanted to lose weight, and tried a diet that didn't yield the results you hoped for, you'll be very excited to hear of a new diet. Likewise for a course that didn't teach what you needed, or a gym program that didn't provide the body you wanted.

There is of course another element at play here: we're innately quite a lazy species. Take a look at any path that goes around a grassed area, and you'll see the corner of grass worn out because it's quicker to cut across it than follow the path. 

Those are benign examples, of course, but consider Lava lamps, Neuro Linguistic Programming, Lean Sigma, personality profiling, and shell suits. All fads that we followed because so many people around us did.

It's easier to take a shortcut than carve our own path. It's easier to just do what everyone else is doing and trust that it's the right thing to do based on the reassurance of strength in numbers.

Each of us have a voice of value, and purpose.

There is almost always another way, and just because everyone else is doing something, it doesn't make it right.

Take personality profiling, for example. 

I'm usually the bearer of bad news to my clients who have invested in it. Scores of people who can confidently say they're a "D", or "red", or a koala. Yet zero real application, and not supported by any reputable psychologists.

Of all the high performing teams and organisations I've worked with over the past 21 years, almost all of them look beyond what everyone else is doing. The individuals who catch our eye, are not those following the herd.

Be careful when you follow the masses for sometimes the 'm' is silent.

Happy Wednesday,

Jez

PS. I was delighted to receive this link from a friend who spotted it - it made my day to see I've been ranked as one of Microsoft's top 10 sought-after business speakers in North America alongside some seriously impressive names.