As leaders, we often face a critical choice: should we follow established best practices or take a contrarian approach?

Making this decision can feel like navigating through a thick fog of uncertainty.

The conformity conundrum

When should you follow the crowd, and when should you break away? Here’s how to decide.

When to follow the conventional path

Non-competitive situations

Basic processes and safety protocols exist for a reason. When lives or fundamental operations are at stake, following established guidelines helps maintain consistency and prevent costly mistakes.

Proven but underutilized practices

If your environment hasn’t yet adopted well-tested best practices, implementing them can give you significant advantages. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when existing solutions work well.

Building foundational skills

When you’re just starting out, following established paths helps you understand the basics. You need to know the rules before you can break them effectively.

When to take the contrarian path

Zero-sum competitions

Doing what everyone else does leads to mediocrity. If all players follow the same strategy, no one wins big. Standing out becomes crucial for success.

Overcrowded playbooks

When everyone follows the same tactics, those tactics lose their edge. If your entire industry uses identical approaches, the potential for differentiation through contrarian thinking increases.

Stagnation through conformity

If standard approaches aren’t yielding results anymore, it’s time for change. Breaking from conventional wisdom can help overcome plateaus and find new growth opportunities.

Feedback to guide your through the path chosen

Being a contrarian is risky.

So how can you minimize that risk?

By listening to your team’s voice.

Your team’s feedback tells a clear story:

  • High morale with current practices → Stay the course
  • Declining engagement → Time to innovate
  • Mixed signals → Dig deeper with segmentation

And during times of high morale, you can proactively innovate to stay ahead. Your team’s mood will guide you through the changes.


Check out TeamMood

  • TeamMood increases feedback frequency. Get daily or weekly notifications to everyone in your team in just a few minutes after signing up.
  • TeamMood is fun. The only thing your teammates need to do is click on their corresponding mood and they are done. Written comments are optional. It’s perfect to start getting more feedback. And it’s easy and quick enough to keep this habit in the long term.
  • TeamMood is anonymous. Your teammates won’t be scared to give honest feedback because their identity is hidden.
  • TeamMood helps you transform feedback into action. Our analytics dashboard help you monitor and analyze feedback to uncover actionable insights more easily.

Learn more about TeamMood
and sign up here

Header photo by C. G.

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