Chapter 10 - Going against the group

Chapter 10 offered a good summary of team dynamics but what was left lingering in my mind was the real world real people example. It talked about how Ken Heebner, a very successful investor, and an experience he had in college. It detailed a psychological experiment that he participated in and the end result was that he was the only person, out of everyone surveyed, that showed "showed no evidence that other people's opinion had any effect whatsoever on what he thought."

In my opinion, that is a very admirable trait. To find someone in today's time that possess a similar quality, would be quite difficult. In my experience, the majority of people I know, will alter their initial impression or thoughts based on the social situation. Even in our class during the ethics test, this was in play. The ethics test was about hypothetical situations that we were to place themselves in, and to raise our hand when the action that we were most likely to agree with was read off. I noticed most of us would glance around looking for allies in thought during this process, before raising their own hand. And other times, people would not raise their hand for an answer, simply because no one else did. This is a core example of letting our peers affect our opinion. Whether this is beneficial or disadvantageous is debatable.

You'll hear in a lot of celebrity interviews, "I don't really care what other people think." I can't help by think that this is a trait that you must possess in order to stand out, which can ultimately affect one's business career, whether in a positive or negative way.

Burger, John. "The mad genius of mutual funds." 06 Jun 2006: 2. Web. 14 Mar 2010. .