Bulldozer00's Blog

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible – Frank Zappa

The further a new idea deviates from the norm, the more resistance there will be to its adoption – and the deviance/resistance relationship is ominously nonlinear:

Since it’s human nature to prefer the familiar over the comfortable, passionate purveyors of new ideas that have proven to work for themselves and their orgs better take heed: the way you promote a deviant idea matters.

The more radical your idea, the more graceful you must be in your advocacy in order for the idea to have any chance of infiltrating the mainstream. If both your idea and your approach are radically extreme, then you’ll likely be perceived as a frontal assault idiot by not only those few in power, but those many on the front lines who would otherwise become your allies.

Even if you eschew a militant stance and adopt a graceful approach toward getting your deviant idea widely accepted, the odds are still stacked against you because of the powerful “familiar over comfortable” force field that keeps the status quo in place.