Following the Crowd

There was a psychological study done once where they had 4 desks set up in a small room. 3 of the students were informed to not leave there seats or react as smoke was pushed under the door from the next room. Then a 4th student was sent into the room with no particular instruction except to fill out the paper work at the remaining station. What was the purpose? Well the theory was that the 4th student would react according to how the other three reacted to the smoke. Normally if you see smoke coming from under a door you would assume that there was a fire. You would maybe call for help and certainly leave the area, but when the 1 uninformed student saw that the other 3 were not alarmed they were a little distracted at first, but they still continued to sit at their desk doing their work. It is easy for us to do what everyone else is doing, but it is difficult to be the first one to lead in a new direction. Too often we want someone else to go ahead of us and set the pace so we do not have to. Are you sitting pacified in a room slowly filling with smoke waiting for someone else to give you a cue or are you ready to lead?