TOPIC: ISSUE141 - "Most people recognize the benefits of individuality, but the fact is that personal economic success requires conformity."
WORDS: 485 TIME: 12:30 DATE: 2007-3-26
According to the speaker, conformity is much more important in the realm of personal economic achievement than individuality is. Although I agree that conformity is necessary to the success of personal wealth, I am afraid that the speaker overstates the comparative significance of conformity over individuality.
As we all know, our society is, to a large extent, a combination of various conformities --- we conform to laws and regulation to ensure our safety, to moral standards to acquire certain behavior criterion, and to general principles to assure the proper operation of communities. Similarly, the personal economic success also relies on conformity. When we are at work, we obey the regulations of companies, practise according to the policies of the firm, and even try to conform ourselves to the culture of the enterprises in order to get the appreciation of other colleagues. Most of us make money with our conformity to the established practices, procedures and rules, and those who work most effectively within these constraints always win a large fortune.
As far as conformity is dominant in our work, individuality also contributes a lot to our careers and thus enables us to attain our economic success. One of my workmates once told me during a conversation of which the topic was how to be a good salesman (and I paraphrase), "We sale our products by our superior service, our profound background knowledge and, the most important, our individuality. In the banking industry, I dare say that at present stage, all the investment products on the market of China are of similar qualities, while customers are easily to be attracted by the numerous alluring promotion events of our competitors. But how can we excel others and keep the loyalty of our clients? Remember this: what you are going to sale is not only the product, but also yourself -- your individuality." Actually he is good at sale his individuality and retain his clients' faith on him. Maybe this is his secret of being a successful salesman and bringing himself rolling fortune.
Besides the sales occupation, jobs to which innovation and creativity are crucial also require individuality to acquire achievements. For example, copywriters in the advertising industry are always expected to inject extraordinary, unparalleled and innovative notions into the advertisement of products which may actually have nothing special, while the celebrities among them are always those who stand out in breaking the conformity. Product developers in almost all the industries are demanded to design new products with no conformity to the present ones, which means that individuality is the master of this realm. In such circumstance, the conflict between conformity and individuality is obviously in favor of the latter one.
In sum, no matter whether conformity or individuality is more necessary, in order to achieve our success in wealth we need to take both advantages of these two contradictive notions and balance them in our money-making activities.