CONFORMITY: WANTED FOR THE MURDER OF BUSINESS CREATIVITY IN NIGERIA

The most powerful religious leader in Nigeria is "conformity".

Dictionary.com defines conformity as "action in accord with prevailing social standards, attitudes, practices, etc."

In Nigeria today, you dare not start or close a public meeting without prayers; you're probably going to hell if you don't attend church on New Year's Eve; and something must be wrong with you if you don't believe "only" God can save Nigeria.

Even your social credibility and acceptability is widely accepted to be directly proportional to the extent of your involvement in church or mosque activities.

It's like on religious matters Nigerians won't think or act different from the next man, in order to not be labeled an outcast.

This group-think seems to also permeate the business arena. What got me thinking about this conformity in business thinking are some comments and reactions to a new business i just started on the "dream big and start small" tip.

ChinChin is one of the most popular pastry snacks in Nigeria. Early last month i got a brainwave to make a healthier and more nourishing type of ChinChin by using whole wheat flour instead of the usual white flour, honey instead of white sugar, and changing other ingredients.

Using three test batches, we sampled the public for opinions on the look, texture, taste, and price of the new product. I must admit that people were generally receptive to the product and a majority of the feedback were positive.

However, the most negative comments bothered me somewhat, because they were not even about any of the things we sampled. Instead, the naysayers essentially questioned why we bothered to make a new kind of ChinChin.

Were they just trying to say that people won't buy the product? I don't think so, because that's not what we asked them. In any case, how will we know that people won't buy it unless we make it?

There's no doubt that Nigerians are entrepreneurial. However, entrepreneurship and creativity are not the same thing. When you come up with a new idea (creativity), you are not entrepreneurial until you turn the idea into a service or product.

What I'm saying is that while Nigerians embrace entrepreneurship they seem to abhor creativity. Invention and innovation are the two creative processes, and we don't invent while we hardly innovate.

I don't know why we are not as creative as we are entrepreneurial, but i suspect two conformist tendencies have something to do with it.

The first tendency is the fear of failure. To most Nigerians failure is like a body odor everyone reminds you of so we are very scared to fail.

The second tendency is a hostility to locally manufactured products. I really don't understand the pervasive mentality that imported goods are always superior to indigenous alternatives. Many goods imported into Nigeria are actually nothing but sub-standard knockoffs and rejects.

So is conformity killing business creativity in Nigeria? Well, if it's not conformity then something is definitely stifling creativity. Since conformity has all but destroyed independent religious thinking in Nigeria, i suspect it's also the culprit in the murder of creativity.

Therefore, I hope Nigerians will embrace and encourage the creatives amongst us more.  We must stop this tendency to conform in thought and action like sheep in a flock.

Conformity only breeds mediocrity.