The Conformity Trap
Why authentic outliers create lasting change
Ever notice how we're all terrified of being the weirdo?
I was thinking about this after reading about Frank Serpico. A badass cop who blew the whistle on NYPD corruption back in 1971.1
The dude literally risked his life to expose a system where cops were taking regular payoffs from criminals. And you know what happened?
His fellow officers allegedly set him up to get shot during a drug raid.
All because he wouldn't play along with "how things are done around here."
That's some serious shit.
It reminded me of something way less dramatic but still telling that happened to me in business school.
I mentioned to a classmate that I was joining a VC fund for the summer instead of one of those prestigious consulting firms everyone was chasing.
Their eyes literally glazed over. Like I'd just admitted to having a contagious disease.
No one was threatening my life, but the message was clear: you're doing it wrong.
This conformity trap is everywhere. And it's costing us more than we realize.
Think of it like modern cities where every downtown is becoming indistinguishable from the next.
Sounds efficient at first, right? The glass skyscrapers clearly work for maximizing office space.
But it's actually a disaster.
The historic neighborhoods lose their character.2
The local architectural traditions vanish.
Even the skylines suffer as they all compete with identical steel and glass towers.
The whole urban landscape becomes soulless.
This is exactly what's happening in our professional world:
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