ISSUE27: 拘泥常规的人没法成功

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Issue27 No one can possibly achieve success in the world by conforming to conventional practices and conventional ways of thinking."
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和人讨论了一下然后写的，改了一下，有点乱。第一次发贴，烦劳各位前辈帮忙看看，先谢过了！

Position: Breaking thru conventional practise or ways of thinking is of great magnitude in academic research, but it's not the same critical in business. The sucess in business depends on many other elements, being creative is just one of them. And sometimes, conforming to conventional does not always bring you failure.

Why is it so critical to be creative, that is, not conforming to conventional ways of thinking, in academic reasearch? First of all,  it's necessary to figure out what makes one "succeed" in academic: If one's point of view or experiment result has something new compare to the old ones, and the new one is able to solve some problems that the old ones cannot, then one has the chance to succeed. In short, it's the differentiation that make the work valuable. So no matter how tiny the difference and the improvement may be, it's essentially required that your work must jump out of the conventional practise or ways of thinking more or less. Otherwise, the work can be regard as worthless, or even worse, plagiarized, no mention of "successful". Therefor, in the academic research, always conforming to convention will almost surely lead to failure.

Then why doesn't creativity play such an predominant role in business? Admittedly, numerous examples have shown us that being creative does give one more opportunities to succeed. But what have to be consider is, to be successful in business, merely being creative is far from enough. And sometimes, without the help of creativity, one still can succeed. To illustrate, let's say there're two factories making a same product. Both factories' size and technology are at the same level, but one of them, for some particular reason (maybe just happen to know the source), is able to buy the raw material in a lower price. Obviously, that factory with a lower cost can sell its products in a relatively lower price, which make them more attrative for consumers, thus has a better chance to prevail its rival. It's possible for this factory eventually beat its rival to the ground, without using the "weapon" of creativity. And even more extremely, when a sofware giant, like Microsoft, wants to compete against a small company who has a more advanced technology, is the best way to seize the market with a more creative and advanced product? No, the best way is to "eat" that company totally -- isn't it one of the most conventional practices between companies? So, in many cases, dilligence, good planning, and sometimes even luck and power are almost the same important as creativity when doing business. Creativity and innovation DOES bring sucess to many individuals and companies, but it's NOT tantamount to say that those conform to convention is doomed to fail.

In conclusion, conforming to conventional practices and ways of thinking will do great harm to those who want to succeed in academic research, but does not play such a decisive role in business. In short, the wilderly accepted claim of "being creative is the only way to succeed" itself is, ironically, a conventional way of thinking.