DW's Blog
The Wisdom Of Conventional Wisdom
by DW Green — September 23, 2015
I’ve been trying to eliminate or at least minimize my internal judgments of people, behavior, and events. But Holy Judgment Day Batman, as humans, is non-judging even possible? It’s like trying to stop incessant thinking. Heck, experienced meditators can’t completely silence their minds.
So with non-judging in mind, I merely question the veracity of Conventional Wisdom. So often I hear, “Well it must be the right way to do it, because that’s what the competition does.” Or “We’ve always done it that way.” Or “That’s how I was trained”. Or “That’s how I have always done it”. Or “Conventional wisdom says such and such.” And so on and so on…
Conventional wisdom stifles creativity. Conventional wisdom is not necessarily even true. Conventional wisdom is often seen as an obstacle to the acceptance of newly acquired information, to introducing new theories and explanations, and often operates as an obstacle that must be overcome by legitimate revisionism. Despite new information to the contrary, conventional wisdom has a property similar to inertia that opposes the introduction of contrary belief, sometimes to the point of absurd denial of the new information set by persons strongly holding an outdated (conventional) view. This inertia is due to the content of conventional wisdom, ideas that are convenient, appealing and deeply assumed by the public or an organization, which hang on to them even as they grow outdated. This inertia can last even after the paradigm has shifted between competing conventional idea sets.
The concept of conventional wisdom is also applied or implied in politics, often related closely with the phenomenon of talking points. It is used pejoratively to refer to the idea that statements, which are repeated over and over, become conventional wisdom regardless of whether or not they are true. Only time will tell, but Republican Presidential candidates Donald Trump, Dr. Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina are challenging political conventional wisdom. Just this morning on a news program, a political pundit, was referring to the “outsider” candidates as harmful to the party’s conventional wisdom of selecting presidential candidates.
What do Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Aldi’s, Costco and Wegman’s have in common? Unconventional wisdom. They exemplify creative leadership. They are risk takers willing to challenge conventional wisdom if new activities improve the customer shopping experience.
If you find yourself determining or justifying your advertising, marketing or merchandising strategies by competitive wisdom or conventional wisdom rationale—pause, reflect, and take a second “fresh” look at your options.
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