Brave but wrong guy

I learned of a study about human behaviour that takes a roomful of people and asks them questions. Simple questions like “is this slide blue or red?”

They planted people that were not part of the study in the room, and had them say an incorrect colour, consistently, while all agreeing with each other.

Humans are so agreeable in nature, that often the participant would go along with the plants, saying a slide was orange when they knew the slide was red.

When one other person stood up to the group, and said no, it’s red, the person was more likely to side with them and start agreeing too.

It turns out that witnessing courage, makes one more willing to find the courage themselves.

They called one of the plants Brave but Wrong Guy.

I’m reminded of working with an individual that could also be described as Brave but Wrong Guy.

And I realized that only when another person whom I greatly respected said “He can’t behave like that, he’s out of line” did I really start to see it for myself. The brave confidence he exuded masked my ability to see him for who he really was.”

I was sad about how the whole relationship went down, and a friend told me that it’s better to have happened now then in 3-4 years. And I agreed.

Now I’m weary of those things, and now I have a name for them. Brave Wrong Guys.

(The study was described in this book by Chip and Dan Heath)