One Man One Vision

Teamwork does not make the dream work

“Nowadays it is the fashion to pretend that no single individual is ever responsible for a successful advertising campaign. This emphasis on ‘team-work’ is bunkum - a conspiracy of the mediocre majority. No advertisement, no commercial and no image can be created by a committee. Most top managements are secretly aware of this, and keep their eyes open for those rare individuals who lay golden eggs.”

- David Ogilvy

Society loves to shove the idea of ‘teamwork’ down everyone’s throat.

Group projects in school, corporate teambuilding exercises, et. al.

All of it instills in you the idea that consensus-seeking is a virtue to be held above all others.

But does it lead to real results?

Nope.

It’s the opposite.

Forming committees and seeking approval from groups of people ALWAYS results in mediocrity.

Most people are timid creatures who are incapable of taking risks and simply don’t have the personality or intelligence required to come up with innovative ideas on their own.

You could hold a gun to their head and say “come up with something, anything” and they wouldn’t be able to.

They just don’t have the It Factor that all creative types are born with.

You might think: “Ok, no problem. Just let the Turbo Genius come up with ideas on his own and then have him run it by the committee to get the rubber stamp before implementing it.”

NO.

That NEVER works.

One of the core traits of mediocre people is a steadfast refusal to accept their own mediocrity.

They want to assert themselves in a “safe” way. And the best way to do that is by chipping away at someone else’s idea until it’s a hollow shell of what its creator intended it to be.

Coming up with your own ideas comes with a massive amount of risk.

You and you alone will have to take the full helping of blame if it doesn’t work out (most ideas don’t).

So it’s much easier to be one of the people on the side who snipes away at the ideas instead of generating one yourself. That way, if it does work out you can say that you “contributed” to it, and if it doesn’t then you can wash your hands of it by saying “it wasn’t my idea.”

Solitary geniuses = massive results

Big Results come from giving a solitary genius the authority to implement his vision, without input or henpecking from anyone else.

There’s just something about the purity of one man’s vision that leads to greatness.

Just one man and his ideas.

Nothing else.

Think about removing roadblocks instead of covering your bases.

If you’re managing a team and you’re lucky enough to have a genius working under you: isolate them from everyone else and let them do their thing.

You’ll be surprised at what they come up with.

Will it work 100% of the time?

Of course not.

You’re not trying to eliminate risk (that’s what the timid committee folk are trying to do). You’re trying to harness it.

You can’t experience the rewards that come from risk-taking without paying the price.

Everyone who takes risks will fail.

But no one who refuses to take risks ever succeeds.

Which is more important to you?